


Trousseaux

by peonydee



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, F/M, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonydee/pseuds/peonydee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette and Adrien need to deal with a couple of loose ends a few days before they marry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His

The gold-plated brooch sat on the dresser in the likeness of a scarab beetle alighting from flight, its garnet spots dull under the afternoon sun.  Only a hairbrush and a well-worn make up bag shared the surface with the metallic bug, only the things she had set out to use tonight. Despite hers and her maid of honor’s tendency for procrastination, Marinette Dupain-Cheng finished packing up her childhood room three days before her wedding to Adrien Agreste.

There wasn’t much she needed to pack. Most of what she intended to bring with her to their townhome—a fixer-upper nestled inside an 18th century building, no doubt full of ghosts and windows that courted sunlight and nooks of inspiration that promised fuel for many seasons to come—fitted an oversized tote that in turn sat on her working table. Beside it was the master to-do list that Alya entrusted to her for the evening, ensuring the spitfire journalist could concentrate on preparing for tonight’s bachelorette party. On her bed were her best sheets and a couple of handmade throw pillows she planned on leaving behind. Given Alya’s smug secrecy over tonight’s party details, Marinette wondered if she should have prepared an extra set or else reserved the photogenic one for the eve of the wedding—puke-stained sheets would hardly flatter the gown Marinette had lovingly labored over for a month. The gown hung in her closet, together with a handful of clothes she didn’t expect to ever wear again but were too special to discard. She had let the closet door open on purpose—the dress was understated and elegant, but she couldn’t completely forgo the full, ball-gown skirt of her high school fantasies.

Who would have known that the fodder of her cheesiest, teenage daydreams would be the same man awaiting her at the end of the aisle?

Over the past two years, Marinette’s bedroom evolved to more of a work room, as her nights became relegated to work or else secreted away for precious time with her equally busy fiancé. Recently, she and her business partner expanded their lease to include the small apartment above their fledgling boutique. She did most of her work there now, in their half-atelier, half-dormitory, along with their growing staff, three full-timers and a _lycéen_ intern. But when she needed a place to recharge, to soothe her overstimulated senses, she would stay a night or a weekend with her parents, sliding into the bustle of the kitchen hours before dawn, manning the register at the bakery and catching up with the regulars and their fond how-do-you-dos, sketching in the afternoon with the skylight above her head and the remnants of the day’s baking still lingering about the room like a blanket, chatting late into the night and batting away the _cat_ astrophic puns of a straying _chaton_ …

“Throw me a pillow, _ma reine_.”

Marinette spun to stare at the speaker, half of her expecting the golden head of her beloved to pop up from the stairwell leading to her room, the other half expecting the golden head of someone else to pop down from the skylight above her. Between her violent change of position and the equally violent rejection of her earlier thoughts, the up-and-coming designer lost her balance and flopped ungracefully against her open closet. The sight of lace pulling dangerously taut against the cloth-wrapped hanger seared away her earlier confusion, propelling her away from the wall and her dress—her _dress_!—in blind panic and into the arms of her—

“Adrien!” she sputtered embarrassed at being caught in middle of awkward flailing. “What are you doing here?”

Being caught in the middle of awkward flailing by Adrien wasn’t a novel experience, of course, but she would have thought she’d be immune from such indignities so close to their wedding.

“And did you just throw a pun at me?”

“Forgive me?” Her soon-to-be husband twirled her expertly to face him, banishing for the moment the images of tripping brides and tottering cakes assailing her mind. He bent as if to kiss the air above one of the hands he held, before his soft smile tightened to a smirk, his eyes twinkling outrageously. “Would you rather I had _pun_ ted it?”

She shrieked in mock horror, lunging for a pillow from her bed to throw at his stupidly perfect jawline.

He still had both of her hands grasped in his, however, and with a move that she could follow but not quite stop, he had both his arms around her, trapping her quite effectively.

“Let me go,” she huffed.

“Never.”

“You, sir, are a gigantic stink of a cheeseball.”

“Hmm.” He tucked her head between his neck and a shoulder, his chin no doubt mussing her precarious up-do. “I’ll fix your hair for you if you promise not to bludgeon me.”

“Fine. And do you repent your crimes against comedy?”

“I will as long as my queen promises to spare me the _pillow_ -ry.”

“Adrien, please.” She couldn’t explain the sudden twist of discomfort that marred the effusive affection she had for the man holding her. “Stop it with the puns.”

He had always given her space when she asked for it, never begrudged her breathing room for the sake of keeping his own footing or protecting the heart he offered, kept offering her even through the years she had been too terrified to accept. He released her, gracious as always, steadying her on her feet before stepping away, feline and svelte. She wanted to bang her head against the wall even as she melted right back into his arms, pulling him down for an apologetic kiss.

He kissed her back briefly before pushing her an arms-width away.

“Are you okay, Mari?” he murmured.

“Better than okay,” she answered, knowing her words to be true even as she said them. “I’m just… overwhelmed, I guess. There’s just too many people who want a piece of us.”

“I understand. I’m kind of more used to the fuss than you are, but it’s hard for me to shrug off the barrage of attention when I know you’re drowning under it. So. I mean it. Throw some of your frustration my way.”

Adrien’s compact lines and the casual fall of the jacket and slacks he wore made him appear so put together. So self-contained and untouchable. For years, Marinette had fallen for this façade. During their _lycee_ days, she had merely guessed at the loneliness of being thrust into an adult world so early. But it was when they reconnected in their university days that she understood how acutely Adrien Agreste _felt_ , how starved he was to love, to live. How he was both fragile and tough underneath the veneer designed to make him so likeable.

Heck, there was plenty to like beyond the teen model persona!

“But you’re overwhelmed, too, aren’t you? Even with all the wedding preparation, your father’s been passing you more and more duties beyond your official job description.”

“Comes with the name, love, but I’ve had lots of practice.”

Marinette couldn’t deny that but made a demurring noise all the same.

“That’s why I come here, you know.”

“To visit my parents?”

“Yes, and up here, too. They let me hide here once in awhile.”

“Is that why you’re here now?”

“It’s possible I wanted a nap before my bachelor’s party. Nino promised to get me so hammered, I’d be forced to take a half day tomorrow and I don’t I can afford that.”

Marinette snorted. “Sometimes, I wish I had just made true my threat to your father.”

Three years ago had been a disaster. Marinette had been working as a designer for one of the ready-to-wear lines of the Agreste House, while Adrien, in his 3rd year in university, was being considered for a design director position for AH’s mass production menswear, even though he had already agreed to start taking shoots and runway jobs again after a long hiatus. They had been careful and discreet, one of the many provisions of Gabriel Agreste’s tolerance of their relationship, until PR decided Adrien’s experimental return to modeling should be accompanied by some controversial news. Perhaps, they had both been too hasty in accusing and confronting Gabriel Agreste—he had been purely focused on managing gowns lined up for not a few noble and even royal clients, having had no time nor attention to spare to leak a few telling pictures of a certain up-and-coming designer and a long established model, just to stir up hype for someone who didn’t need it. Never mind Adrien Agreste’s come back. The Agreste House haute couture division was poised to dress a royal wedding party.

“I give you my word as a fellow designer,” Gabriel had even deigned to say to them.  

“O-okay,” Marinette said, wary but mollified. “I rescind my resignation, as a sign of good faith, but I request employment as a freelancer instead.”

“As a favor to my obtuse son, I accept,” the distant man said. “My instinctive response would be to remove my son’s coattails completely from your reach, but as you are stubborn as he is, if not more, it would be a waste of time to pull against such pigheaded contrariness.”

“Mr. Agreste,” Marinette retorted hotly. “If I had wanted to take advantage of my relationship with your son to get ahead in this business, I’d have taken up his ridiculously cheesy hints to elope to Rome a long time ago.”

She had started to stomp out of her boss’s office before finding she had more to say.

“Of note, since you seem so inconvenienced by so pigheaded a son, you should be happy to find out he soon _won’t_ be your problem, anymore. We’re engaged.”

They hadn’t really been at that time, but the white lie was worth the indignant expression Marinette never would have thought possible on Gabriel Agreste’s immovable face. Not to mention, the entire fiasco had given her incentive to roll out the shop she had been saving for, for years. Together with her business partner, Izumi Hina, an old _ecole de la chamber_ classmate, she had opened Duchess, a quirky boutique in a quickly developing commercial complex in one of the suburbs. Six days later, Adrien Agreste proposed to Marinette Dupain-Cheng, claiming he didn’t want to steal the Duchess’ thunder but wanted to take advantage of the auspicious times. Luckily for him, Marinette said yes.

Presently, Adrien drew his fiancée back into his embrace, chuckling against her temple. “A Roman holiday, Mari,” he murmured. “In four days.”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, handsome boy,” she scolded, not unkindly.

“What, are you planning on backing out?”

“Nothing will make me.”

“Hmm.” For some reason, Adrien seemed suddenly restless in her arms, bristling like a spooked cat almost. “...I certainly hope so.”

“Nothing will make me,” Marinette repeated. “Adrien.”

He ducked his head to give her a quick peck on the lips. “You will enjoy yourself tonight, at least,” he promised.

“I’ll make a point of it. As you should.”

Adrien flashed her a ghost of a smile and was gone.

Marinette stood where her soon-to-be husband left her for quite some time, missing his warmth in the suddenly dusk-dimmed room.  She had far long outgrown the reflexive fear of being too plain, too boring, too inept for her incredibly kind man, but there were times, secret, brief blips of time, when she shuddered in the possibility that she didn’t in fact deserve him and that the reason had nothing to do whatsoever with her merits but with her secrets.

Perhaps, it was only normal for her, being under such stress between the wedding preparations, the unrelenting interest of the public, and the daily life that still had to be lived. It was normal for her to buckle under the pressure and wish she still had access to Ladybug’s dots and luck. It was normal for her make a silent wish to her scarab beetle brooch before pinning her shawl in place with it.

What wasn’t normal was her visceral reaction to her fiancé’s lighthearted attempt to ease her stress with a few harmless puns.

What wasn’t normal was the way she avoided looking up to her skylight the rest of the evening, lest she see the shadow of a man she hasn’t seen in eight years, even as she prepared for the party ostensibly celebrating her last night as a free woman.

Nothing will make her change, she promised the love of her life.

_Nothing_.


	2. Hers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the Surot Anonymous chat for making this descent into shipping hell 10000x more fun.

Ayla, the groom happened to know, had every reason to feel smug about the event she had arranged for Marinette. Adrien knew how so quite intimately, having been privy to certain details of said event since its inception. What would start out as a cozy dinner with close friends and family would transition to a tribute to Marinette’s talents and kindness over after-dinner drinks---a whimsical slideshow of fond anecdotes from her friends first, followed by a brief fashion show of her notable creations from her student days. Once Nino took his place behind his spin table, however, the designer’s bachelorette party would hit full swing.

For months now, Marinette has been nervously relaying to him her friends’ giggly threats of over-the-top activities---a bordello-themed costume party, helicopter rides over the city at night, a socialite crash course aboard boats skimming through the requisite towns of the southern coast, limousine rides to and through Monte Carlo while champagne and gym-sculpted guns overflowed from wine flutes and muscle shirts respectively. From his hidden perch, Adrien smirked as Marinette’s rather harried expression gave way to relief, even as Ayla led her and Sabine through the quiet resto-bar and up to a second floor function room. Evidently, even the non-threatening Pigalle venue hadn't put his queen entirely at ease. Only now as she walked around the cluster of elegantly set tables surrounding a square dancefloor, ran her hand along the oaken wall paneling that reflected the incandescence of the oil lamp centerpieces, and inhaled the jasmine and lily of the valley scents from the miniature bouquets gracing each setting, did she seem to relax.

“Wow, Ayla,” Marinette said, voice hitching in a way made Adrien’s chest feel tight. “This is… just wow.”

“Now, now,” the redhead scolded even as her best friend rumpled her into a bear hug. “It’s way too early for that. I promise you’d have more reason to bawl your eyes out before the night is over.”

With tears of joy, Adrien mentally added.

Not for the first time tonight—nor likely to be last—the model-turned-business executive second-guessed his decision to confess to his future wife. He couldn’t hardly afford to hedge for longer; he needed to tell her the truth before they were finally united as one in front of God and men, before it was too late for her.

Too late for what, he countered his own ominous thoughts. By the way, I can’t wait for us to get married on Saturday, but I used to be one half of Paris’s own superhero duo—would that be an issue, queen of mine?

In his heart of hearts, Adrien couldn’t see how it would make a difference with her. Marinette’s heart was magnanimous, so much so that even its weakest beat over the past eight years had likely still propelled him to where he stood now, would continue to fuel the steps he’d be taking for years to come. He simply couldn’t see her begrudging him of a secret he had been prepared to carry to his deathbed, not when his safety and that of anyone minutely connected to him was at stake.

Wouldn’t it be safer for her not to know then, his mind challenged, after all you’d never know when Chat Noir would be needed again.

Plagg did say that it was not unheard of for two, even several, Hawk Moths to surface during one generation of Chat Noir. (He did not have the chance to ask about Ladybug.) Call him superstitious, but Adrien refused to even entertain the possibility. Not even for the chance to wear Chat Noir’s claws again would he watch another Hawk Moth wreak havoc upon his home.

While he didn’t plan on scaring her with this possibility, he was determined not to lie, should she ask about it. Full disclosure, Adrien made a promise to her years ago. Chat Noir and Plagg were tremendous influences on his past and on his formative years. She should know about them before he tied his future with hers, before it was too late for her to make a choice.

_ To leave you? _

She wouldn’t. She promised.

_ You know better. _

Adrien did know better: he cast his doubts aside and took one last look at his beloved before sneaking back to his own Fall Out 4-and-a-couple-of-beers party. The petite woman was busy catching up with relatives, old schoolmates, and friends, flitting from one table to the next with a swish of her balloon skirt of imperial red silk, one that he recognized from the sketchpad she kept lodged between his mattress and bedside table. She paused to glance up towards Adrien’s hiding place. She couldn’t see him, of course, but just the sight of her upturned face cleared the ghosts in his head instantly. He might have held her unknowing gaze for longer, might have been tempted to peek out and watch her curious expression turn indignant, but she was distracted by the arrival of cousins. Adrien grinned at the sudden influx of flailing, familiar with her tendency to supplement her improving Mandarin with empathic gestures. Her sleeveless blouse of lace and black pearls—this piece he recognized partially beaded on a mannequin at the Duchess’s—exposed swaths of her midriff each time she lifted her arms, trapping his eyes to the shifting temptation of her skin, heating his own as he imagined the pads of his fingers, his lips, trace the undulating path of her hem about her belly.

Adrien’s grin curled into a smirk. Oh, but she might as well have demarcated his favorite landmarks on her body. She’d be floored, his queenly bride, when he finally crashed her party. She’d be as crimson as her skirt. The minx might even feel the need to vindicate herself upon his body, much later, when he least expected it, and she’d have the rest of their lives to plan it.

Who would have known that the once, unwitting brunt of his angstiest teenage resentments would be the same woman he’d be waiting for in front of the altar?

 

* * *

 

Ladybug and Chat Noir banished Hawkmoth in the June of Adrien's last year in  _ lycee _ . The past year leading to their last battle had been mind-numbingly hectic, between the modeling shoots and runway shows, the advance classes he had to ace in order to qualify for the best prep programs in Paris, the international standardized tests he took for universities in Singapore, U.K., and America, the increasing frequency and intensity of akuma attacks... It all came to a head those last days of spring. There were instances he and Ladybug had to split up for two simultaneous attacks, with him sometimes acting as a punching bag to buy her time to banish one, until she could dash back to defeat his playmate. The handful of times Hawkmoth saw fit to intervene directly, he had always gone for the weaker link, whether in attempt to wrest the miraculous from Chat Noir himself or to needle Adrien's deep-seated fears of inadequacy. Adrien had his suspicions about Hawkmoth's identity, and perhaps it was fortuitous that in the end that he never been able to confirm it.

He didn't even get to say goodbye to her. One moment, he and Ladybug were clutching at each other to keep from being swept away by the maelstrom of magic released by destruction of Hawkmoth's miraculous. The next, he was waking up in his bed, with his room spinning from vertigo, and every muscle in his body aching.

And Plagg.

Plagg wasn’t Plagg as Adrien had always known him.

Plagg was saying goodbye.

There was no reason for him to stay awake, "sentient," as he very un-Plagg-ly phrased it. He and Ladybug's kwami needed to rest until Hawkmoth surfaced again, be it five years from then or a hundred, whenever and wherever any fleck of ash from the original Hawkmoth's miraculous found  a new heart to fester and rot. But he'd visit, he assured Adrien, as he affectionately rubbed himself against the teenager's cheek. He promised.

Adrien never did find out who the two other bearers of the Miraculous were. His father was the same in most ways, implacable and uncompromising, demanding excellence in everything he did, but he seemed more willing to compromise with his only son. Perhaps, it was because Adrien learned to bargain with him more effectively over the years, aiming to exceed expectations in exchange for certain freedoms. Perhaps, it was simply the nature of growing up, one that even Gabriel Agreste respected.

(Perhaps, Adrien simply found what he sought from his father elsewhere.)

But during those blank days following Plagg’s departure, control was the last thing Adrien felt he had. Even though the  _ Bac _ exam, upon which hung the balance of every  _ lycee _ student's diploma, was pushed back by two weeks all throughout France, Adrien was unwell for an additional week. When he finally sat for his  _ baccalaureate general _ , Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the only other person who took the test with him.

Even though Marinette took the humanities stream while Adrien took the math stream starting their second year in  _ lycee _ , they ended up having quite a few classes together, such that the petite girl’s shyness around him eventually faded (thus, making him realize that she wasn’t regularly a spastic though adorable klutz—just around him for some reason) and he in turn happily counted her among his closest friends.

“You know, we’ve always thought you’d take up Physics in university,” Marinette said, and then at a murmur he wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear, “granted it’s a little bit over the top—a supermodel tinkering with a supercollider.”

“Unfortunately, that's not one of my options,” Adrien retorted without real heat. “And since I don’t have your talent in design, I can’t completely take over the family business. Father seems to think the next best thing is for me to learn how to run it.”

Her brows knitted in consternation. “You can still take elective courses, can’t you?”

“Most of the schools I’m expected to qualify tend to be specialized.”

The Marinette from college would have taken the hint and kept quiet. Marinette of their final day in  _ lycee _ seemed desperate to keep him talking, however, when all he wanted was to finish the test and figure out a way to fill the sudden excess of time he never knew he had to spare, now that Paris wasn’t in constant danger of being annihilated.

It could only be testament to how much of a mess he was that day that he could barely stand the six hours he had to endure around her. That day, he found her sweet nature cloying, her cheerfulness trite, and her friendly overtures oppressive. How she prattled about her summer plans with Ayla, he had thought blankly, not knowing his turning eighteen meant his working hours were no longer constrained to that of a minor. She shyly shared being accepted early at one of the most prestigious fashion schools in Paris, while he contemplated the two grueling years of  _ prepas _ he still faced, the entrance exams into Europe’s elite business schools, the four years or more at some  _ grande ecoles _ , the future stretching out before him, interminable and out of his control.

As he looked at her, her deep blue eyes dancing with a barely restrained joy, he remembered every resentful thought that had floated through his mind that entire dead week. These people had no idea.  _ She _ had no idea who he was or what he had lost. She had no idea he had just lost not one, but two of the people closest to him.

(She had no idea he had lost his only window of freedom.)

He was just Adrien Agreste to her, a boy blessed with a life-time plan and the resources to carry it out. A universally adored person, many accused him of being, but at the end of the day he was a mere means of entertainment. In the grand scheme of things, no one cared what happened to yet another teen model.

(In the grand scheme of things, now that Hawkmoth is gone, no one cared what happened to Ladybug and Chat Noir.)

See, the thing with Marinette Dupain-Cheng was that Adrien had nursed suspicions of her having a certain alter ego for the past three years. That fateful day in June, however, that last day of  _ lycee _ , destroyed any notion that the incredible Marinette was secretly Ladybug, despite the carefully argued evidence Adrien had collected over the years. She couldn’t possibly be Ladybug, he decided. She couldn’t possibly be that happy about giving up her secret life, her high but lonely destiny, her capacity to meaningfully affect  _ something _ .

(She couldn’t possibly be happy about losing two friends. If not her kwami, him. Chat Noir. The partner she was prepared to die for, who was prepared to die for her. The partner who knew her in her purest form. The one that didn’t dance around social niceties, but simply focused on the tasks at hand.)

That fateful, shameful day in June, however, was probably a blessing in disguise. Even though it started with Adrien unfairly foisting his grief upon the unknowing shoulders of one slender, sweet-natured young woman, it was during also during that fateful day, that first day of summer, when Adrien finally noticed Marinette.

 

* * *

 

  
  
For Adrien Agreste’s bachelor party, his management team and modeling agency rented out Pegase et Bellerophon, a dance club in the Champs-Elysees area, known for its rampant celebrity sightings, long queues, and no-nonsense bouncers. A handful of paparazzi cordoned the venue, hoping for a few snaps of the famously goody-two-shoes model undone by alcohol and other illicit substances making rounds of such a place. A third generation businessman who had been raised in the limelight and had no doubt been exposed early to the leisures of the depraved, even Adrien must sometimes dabble in the deadly mix of ennui and excessive wealth.

He resigned himself to making an appearance later tonight, for now enjoying the company of his closest friends. Mostly classmates from  _ lycee _ and  _ prepas _ days, the men had abandoned their video games for something requiring less eye-hand coordination and more liquid courage. The groom obliged his friends to a couple of cheesy love songs (he wasn't exactly poised for a crossover career into pop music), before relinquishing the mic and focusing on more important things---the big reveal scheduled to hit the wood-paneled function room one floor below them. He had less than an hour to calm his nerves.

Again, Adrien must give kudos to Alya, not only for having the aplomb to carry out such a wild idea, but also for having found the perfect venue with a cozy game room in the attic, where Adrien could hide till show time. That the landing to the room's door overlooked the function room was a bonus, for it allowed Adrien to take part in his bride's special night as a spectator.

He came out just in time, it seemed. Judging from his bride’s rosy face and the exhilarated chatter of her guests, the notorious opening of presents must have just finished. He avoided looking at the pile of gifts being carted away from Marinette’s table. After all, while Adrien would admit to daydreams of giving his favorite designer a few tips on modeling, the very thought of his future wife stubbornly surprising him with a personal show made his pulse quicken a smidge too much. Which Marinette would she showcase: a hot mess of baby pink lace coming undone as she wobbled over her scattered clothes or a royal flush of red silk gathering confidence as she strutted all over his abandoned paperwork?

A round of applause stirred him from his imaginings. Alya had just announced the special show they had arranged for Marinette, who was now perched uncertainly on a steel chair in the middle of the dance floor. Adrien made his way down to the back entrance of the second floor function room. It led him directly to the area behind the silk screen partition that served as a backstage and storage area for cleared plates and cutlery. He arrived in time to see Marinette’s face purse in amusement as her business partner slipped past the partition.

Marinette’s business partner, Hina, modeled the casual floral print dress that featured the Duchess in last year’s Cosmopolitan summer edition, exemplifying their line’s focus on natural fabrics, whimsical prints, and comfortable fits. The dress reminded one of hot summer days and cooling breezes wafting from the sea, its translucent sleeves shifting with the wearer like leaves with the wind, the voluminous skirt skimming her thighs with each step like sand whirling away with retreating waves.

Next, Nino showed off the first date attire Marinette assisted him with during their second year in  _ lycee _ . The bomber jacket was Marinette’s precise patchwork of red, blue, and yellow. Adrien had always wondered if she had consciously patterned the color scheme after Bubbler’s, the akuma, borne from Nino himself that Ladybug and Adrien fought in his collegian days. Not wanting to be the jerk who’d remind everyone of unpleasant events, Adrien never did ask her.

The next piece proved how Adrien’s inherited social ties with Chloe Bourgeois apparently still held sway. The socialite agreed to lend the debutante gown that had landed her spreads in the Parisian society papers eight years ago.  An old schoolmate from  _ college _ and  _ lycee _ , Rose, wore the silk-tulle gown of imperial yellow, daring with its deeply plunging neckline and its shock of porcelain blue belt. It was the dress that kicked off Marinette’s reputation in fashion school, what with a first year winning a city-sponsored contest. Chloe had been livid when the participants were revealed but even her injured vanity could not force her to reject Marinette’s work.

Ayla herself walked the makeshift runway, handing the microphone to her Nino, as she slipped out of the lightweight navy blue coat. The V-neck slip dress had become Ayla’s go-to little black dress, one that showcased her bestfriend’s stupendous talent for draping. The casual but close fit flattered Ayla’s hourglass shape and with the right accessories could be dressed down for a modest event like Ayla and Nino’s engagement party four years ago or dressed up for an affair like the one they attended just late last year, an award ceremony that recognized Nino’s dabbles in producing.

Mylene, another old classmate, was escorted out by her husband Ivan, wearing the first wedding gown Marinette ever made, a sleeveless ball gown in champagne brocade. Adrien couldn’t risk to stay longer at this point, dashing back into the shadows of their makeshift dressing room, just as the couple passed. He stripped down to his underclothes, well-versed in the art of quick wardrobe changes, before fumbling for his coat pocket, pulling out something heavy and cool to touch. Even then, it took him a few seconds to gather his guts, terrified that the words caught in his throat would remain as powerless as they’ve had for years.

Jaws tense, hands shaking, he finally managed to utter, “Claws out, Plagg.”

 

* * *

 

  
  
An international campaign for a popular clothing chain kept Adrien busy the entire summer after taking his Bac. He barely had time to reflect upon the recent changes in his life, much less find a happy medium between what he wanted and what he had to do. While he could happily devour anything related to physics, chemistry, and math, he had to admit he enjoyed his job, too, be it for the times he felt perfectly in sync with the camera or for the opportunities to meet people from all over the world, catch glimpses their cultures, and see their creativity shine under the most strenuous of pressures. During the Asian leg of the campaign, his stays in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore allowed him to practice his Mandarin, while in most other cities, his English. Perhaps, being caged didn't matter as much when the enclosure spanned continents. 

Nino kept in touch, though in form of a group chat that also included his girlfriend, Alya, and their mutual friend, Marinette. Marinette and Adrien tended to be quieter than the others, to the point Nino and Alya probably sometimes forgot they were conversing in the group chat window instead of their own private one. What they call "trash talk" was more in line with the dorkiest teenage flirting known to mankind, beating even Chat Noir's most pathetic pick up lines--Adrien should know. Nino's talent in music didn't quite extend to lyrics writing, so Alya's verses were often met with cheesy deluges of emoticons and random pictures of things Adrien assumed reminded Nino of Alya. 

One early morning, while Adrien's plane was grounded by a typhoon in Jakarta, he texted Marinette directly to complain about their mutual friends' lovers' quarrel over comma use. Marinette texted back almost immediately, her long suffering exasperation with being both a virtual and physical third-wheel to the budding poets spilling over the screen in sputters of keyboard smash and emoticons. When not so overwhelmed with their friends' love talk, Marinette was quite more talkative online than in person, and while their conversations were separated by days or weeks of silence, Adrien began to share with her his musings, his random streams of consciousness that ranged from life questions to silly things, during the long minutes he waited to fall asleep. She returned it in kind.

"I think my room might be haunted. Or just happen to be in a weird spot on earth's magnetic field striations. Or maybe I'm just homesick for my haunted room at home and I'm imagining my ghosts here."

"The cafe next door the bakery has their bathroom in the basement. People have sometimes left their meals and casually buy a pastry in our bakery so they can use our bathroom instead. So do you have actual people-like ghosts in your house here in Paris? I mean have you seen apparitions or just get those weird feelings of having somebody watch you?"

"Nah. Don't have third eye. Honestly nanny might be just pulling my leg coz I won't go to sleep as a kid. We should have lunch there with Trashtalk lovebirds."

"Please. We should stay over at your house and ghost hunt. Hahaha! I miss _ lycee  _ sometimes---totally something our classmates would be up for."

"I think I'm gonna take up paranormal chasing instead. My dad would love that."

"Your dad would love you regardless."

"Gee, thanks. Awfully supportive of you."

"Don't be snide."

"I'm serious."

"Now you're just being dramatic. You'll do fine in that limits and derivatives mock test."

"How do you even remember that?"

"You texted me proofs from your reviewer yesterday. I thought my phone was possessed. How do you even text those symbols?!"

When his  _ prepas _ sessions started in September, he didn't have enough time to talk, but still sent pictures or snippets from his textbooks of things he thought Marinette might find interesting.  Marinette started fashion school and in turn started sending him pics of works in progress and short bursts of spazzing when guest instructors or lecturers came.  The spazzing was so  _ lyceene _ Marinette that it was all Adrien needed to start sending her sneak peeks of pieces from backstage of shows he walked in, just minutes before they hit the runway. 

Their text exchanges tapered in Adrien's second year in  _ prepas _ , however, as his modeling contracts hit their most hectic. There was a certain momentum that one touched in one's career and even though  _ prepas _ was already taxing him, he couldn't turn down campaigns from fashion houses that made Paris the fashion capital of the world. He walked the big four fashion weeks that year. Guested at a British daily soap. Starred in a pop idol's music video. Took concurs to seven grandes ecoles. And started shadowing Nathalie at the Agreste House. 

One day, while examining the production lines at one of their Parisian ateliers, Adrien caught sight of a familiar blue-black ponytail. Marinette had started her five-month internship at the Agreste House. 

"Marinette!" he had called out from across the room, dashing around sewing machines and work tables, catching her in a hug. He completely didn't expect the way she stiffened in his arms or her lack of even a simple, "hi!" His enthusiasm plummeted a few notches but not enough to wipe the grin off his face. "Why didn't you tell me you started internship here?"

Marinette gave an vaguely coherent response about unfair advantages and befriending the boss's kid. He had forgotten about Marinette's strange shyness around him, mostly because of how talkative she seemed in chat. He supposed approaching her in his father's company, while acting as his assistant's assistant, put Marinette on the spot, attracted undue attention to her, maybe suggested the wrong message to her peers? Adrien plastered a professional smile on his face and awkwardly patted her on the arm, anyway. 

"Good seeing you, old classmate," he said, making it sound as impersonal as possible. "See you when I round, I guess."

"Wait!" the petite designer finally managed say. "Coffee at the haunted cafe! You remember?" Then she turned five shades of red.

"I remember," he promised. In fact, he never did forget that technically speaking she asked him out first.

 

* * *

 

 

Their promise to investigate the cafe by the Dupain-Cheng's for ghosts did not happen until two years later. After her internship ended, Marinette was offered a part-time job at the Agreste House as an assistant pattern maker, thereby exposing her to the various styles of the label's designers, even some of Gabriel Agreste's works, and honing her already remarkable precision in fitting and cutting. Adrien started management school in HEC. Even though he was finally allowed by his father to take a hiatus in modeling, any spare time he had was spent gophering for Nathalie.

What Adrien did manage was to have coffee with Marinette at least once a week, around two or three in the afternoon. He brought enough coffee and pastries for the twenty-something members of her department, usually from the Dupain-Cheng's bakery. Marinette would spend her fifteen minute coffee break with a fraction of his forty-seven minute lunch break. Over the next two years, they met like this, awkwardly at first. The ease of instantaneously pouring out thought in the privacy of their phones was markedly different from trying to interact in a visible place, where everyone recognized the boss's son, where Marinette was still sometimes distracted by the poster boy looks. And then Marinette's coworkers got used to Adrien--"Oi, Mari, the handsome boy is let out to play today"--and the friendly banter of their late night chats began creeping into their polite small talk over coffee. 

With Adrien's increasing responsibilities in AH, he even ended up working with Marinette sometimes. Long hours preparing for a launch or an design pitch seemed to go by faster when they were involved in the same projects. They didn't even have to work together, just the idea of having the energetic woman in the same vicinity as his made Adrien happy. 

Well. There was that. Adrien was happy. 

He realized it one day, while watching Marinette flit about a temperature-controlled storage cell underneath the Agreste main office, watching her break into her victory wiggle after they finally finished cataloging all twenty-nine cells’ worth of Gabriel's and, before him, Horatio Agreste's best works, in order to assist the design team for their thirtieth anniversary ready-to-wear campaign. He was happy, he realized, even though he barely had three hours sleep the past seventy-two hours. Even though his course load that semester was projected to be his heaviest ever. Even though his father's demand for perfection seemed to become so tantalizing close at times, only for him fall flat on his face, not disgraced, not a failure, just inescapably mediocre. Even though his life of increasing responsibility and toil seemed to stretch interminably into the dim future.

Adrien Agreste was happy. 

The last time Adrien thought of himself as happy, truly happy, was during the halcyon days of  _ lycee _ . The strangle of disappointment often brought by his father's departure from how other people's dad seemed to be had become a dull ache that seemed easy to dismiss as habit. 

He was needed. He was part of something. He felt accepted despite his flaws, without requirement of perfection and submission. Even with Ladybug's playful yet cautious insistence on sidestepping his strident love for her, Adrien always felt it was ok to be himself. 

Speaking of Ladybug, it wasn't that Adrien didn't wonder what happened to his long-time partner. No doubt she was probably like him, adjusting to a more mundane existence, missing her kwami as much as Adrien missed Plagg. Never mind his pronouncements of undying love, what he missed he most was her friendship. 

Adrien felt the most Chat Noir, the most natural, around Ladybug. 

Watching Marinette Dupain-Cheng's eyes dance as she presented her notes and sketches to the design team, watching her wrinkle her nose and empathically tug on her ponytail over the time frame given to them, listening to her carefully reason away the doubts of her audience made Adrien think of the ratty box he had quite forgotten under his old adolescent belongings. The evidence box, he called it, wherein he collated newspaper clippings, print outs from fanblogs, flash drives containing security cam or news footage, and random observations from both his battles as Chat Noir and his days in school as Adrien. Everything that supported the idea that Ladybug and Marinette are the same person had ended up in that box over the years.

"I have a problem, Nino," he told his best friend over the phone after making the DJ/musician promise he wouldn't share any of the information to Alya---yet. "I think I'm falling for a girl, but I'm afraid I'm falling for her because she reminds me of someone I've fallen for before, whom I haven't even met or heard from in years and likely never ever would."

"...what about it?" Nino asked after a stymied silence. 

"Well, doesn't that make me a jerk?"

"Wait. I'm pretty sure you're not going out with anyone."

"I'm not?"

Nino snorted. "When do you have time, dude? In your dreams?"

"Even I can dream," muttered Adrien. 

"And are you still in love with the other girl?"

"Moot point. She’s not around. Maybe I'm not  anymore. But if I were, wouldn't it be unfair to the second girl if I ask her out?"

"Adrien, buddy, what's the worst that could happen if you do? You either discover you like the 2nd girl more or less than the 1st girl. You might like them both in the end--in which case, I won't be able to help you. I'm a one-woman man."

"All right."

"I mean why are you even questioning your motives, man? You like the second girl right?"

"Well... Yeah."

"And you're worried you like similar things about girl #2 that you liked about girl #1?"

"I guess."

"Doesn't that just mean you have a type?"

"A type?"

"A preference. Isn't that normal?"

"Yes?

"Go for it, dude."

Later that night, Adrien laughed to himself as he remembered his conversation with Nino. It seemed his training under Nathalie was doing its work: he was thinking too much like his dad now, weighing motives, seeking bluffs and feints, forcing the abstract or the intangible into concise measurements. 

What's the catch?

Perhaps, the best course would be to clear the air with Marinette, show her the box of evidence and see how she reacts, even ask her point blank if she really was Ladybug. The worse that could happen was for her to refuse to answer. 

Over winter break, Adrien invited Marienette to the haunted cafe.    
  
"Sorry, I'm late!" Marinette burst out as she cleared the last three steps of the staircase that connected the bakery to her house.  

Sabine pressed a small paper bag of chocolate croissants with Adrien's purchase of macaroons--for a 5:30 budget meeting that promised to drag till 7 tonight, he explained to the puzzled Marinette. 

"Leave it here, then," she said. "They're technically competition."

"But I'll have to pass by here before I go then," Adrien protested. "What if I get tempted to go up to your home?"

"I will try not to tempt you with dessert," Tom, walking down after his daughter at a more sedate pace,  insincerely assured him with a wink.

"See? It'll be an exercise for self control--not like you need it! Seriously, stop being so damn proud of physique, handsome boy. Stress eat a little, like the rest of us mortals."

Adrien shook the bag of croissants at her incredulously.

"A little honey and butter won't make you spout love handles overnight."

Thus besieged, Adrien promised to subject himself to more temptation after his lunch date with Marinette.

"After you, my lady," he said with a martyred look. 

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him, but led the way to the cafe next door. 

The building wasn’t particularly old, so Adrien was startled at the contrast between the café’s dark interior and the bakery’s rich natural light. The small space was cozy enough, what with its leather seats, black-stained woods, and brass trims. It took a bit of maneuvering to fit into a corner table that gave them a sweeping view of the establishment and gave some protection from prying eyes from the street. Their knees still knocked together---at least Adrien’s weren’t jammed halfway up her thigh—and he was quite conscious of the press of her calves against his shin, until the issue of payment prematurely came up. Perhaps, Marinette too needed distraction from their entangled legs, what with the way she threw herself into the discussion.

“Listen to your betters, Adrien,” she said with a toss of her head. “Today is my treat.”

“My better?” he repeated with a snort.

In adult life, she claimed, pointing out that she was in her fourth and final year in fashion school, while Adrien was in his second, that she was already part of the workforce, while he languished in an unpaid internship under his father’s assistant. Never mind that they were both barely adults at 21, both work for the same company, and that the investments of his own childhood earnings have always returned decently.

“Please, chevalier, I invited you out. So there.”

She ordered a nice sparkling white and a breaded potato appetizer that turned out to be filled with Camembert cheese. He made a face at her, footing aside speculations arising in his mind, and ate some, pleasantly surprised to discover it much less pungent than he remembered.

“I haven’t been near Camembert cheese since forever,” he remarked. “Since  _ lycee _ actually.”

“You still don’t like Camembert, huh?”

“You remember?”

“Not till now.” She smiled sheepishly.

“I don’t mind actually.” And he didn’t. “Reminds me of an old friend.”

Adrien was caught by the large blue eyes, looking up at him expectantly, wondering what was more impolite, to keep or not keep on staring back. The table didn’t exactly separate them to an appropriately sort-of coworker/former longtime classmate distance. He felt his face heat under her scrutiny. He focused on the hard edge of the evidence box jutting against his side through the messenger bag, willing his thoughts to settle into some semblance of rationality. It was a perfect opening he couldn’t possibly let slip. He should ask her now, and then, regardless of her answer, finally confess.

…Confess what?

“Ahh… Speaking of friends--”

“Your things did smell like Camembert a lot, which made me wonder if you only hated it because they made you eat it so much at home. Or if you actually secretly liked it and thought it uncool to admit. I mean western Europe  would have probably have ran out of cheese for a week, if you had. You were insanely popular that summer because of the Desigual campaign you did in Spain, you know.” 

Marinette stopped abruptly.. 

“Sorr--ah, thanks for listening to me ramble after I interrupted you. Please, go on about your friend.”

Adrien chuckled, bopped her bangs lightly with the paper napkin he had been twisting in his nervousness, then curled back to his previous position, elbow on table, chin resting on his cupped hand, their eyes level. “Conversing. Exchange of ideas. Interrupting each other welcome and accepted. Unless it's not, then you tell me to shush.”

She waved for him to go on as she sipped on her drink.

“This friend of mine,” he continued, letting a fond smile hide under his fingers. “I've known her for forever, but I never did appreciate her enough till now.

“I'm not really sorry about it, because I like to think I've matured just a bit, that we both have. So know we would be less likely to try to hide behind personas we think more acceptable.

“I'm rambling, aren't I?”

She nodded. Winced. “I mean--” she sputtered. “Keep rambling.”

“I mean there's the obvious: she's brave and brilliant and insanely talented. She always thinks of the needs of people around her and her sense of justice burns like a beacon, even when, especially when it’s so much easier to just lie low and avoid confrontation, avoid unpleasantness.”

Adrien’s eyes crinkled as Marinette’s brows started drawing in faint confusion. 

“She lives, I subsist--I never knew the difference till I met her. She makes me feel brave, to consider consequences, to plan for them, but not allow them to cripple me into immobility. To compromise is not weakness. To find a middle ground is not cop out.”

Was he still talking about Ladybug, a distant part of mind queried. He shrugged internally and went with it. If he stopped now, he'd never be able to tell her. 

“She makes me feel like it's ok to be me. That I don't have to always be heroic, always be perfect. I mean I've made a living with an infallible image---but you can't airbrush unpleasant feelings out of real life. You can't hide behind a professional smile 24/7.”

Marinette’s face had since paled, the dusting of freckles across her nose becoming more pronounced under the scant winter light the shutters filtered through. He swallowed past a lump in his throat and soldiered on. 

“I've always wondered if she was uncomfortable around me because of all that fuss. I mean it must have seemed so ridiculous to her, my life of being carted around in a limousine to extra lessons and photoshoots, but I'm glad we've gotten the chance to know each other. I'm starting to hope that she doesn't hate me after all.”

“Adrien, listen--”

“Shush, you, or I won't get this out. This friend is very important to me. So what I want her to understand that whatever it is I ask her next, she shouldn’t feel pressured to answer in any certain way. I've had practice at this unrequited love thing and I will never take something like that against her.”

Marinette shot out of her seat, not quite upending their table but jolting Adrien’s chin off his hand. 

“Mari--?”

“You don't have to do this, Adrien.”

“Good. ‘Coz I'm tired of speaking hypothetically when---”

“Christ, Adrien! A happy medium is one thing, but you shouldn't let your father dictate these things!”

“My father?”

“Please. Just. I can't do this. Backtrack and let's forget you ever---I’d volunteer to talk to him for you, but I don't think I have the gall to--”

Adrien felt the tell-tale ice of incipient rage blanking his mind. His father… “Father,” he asked, deceptively quiet. “He told you this?”

“No!” Marinette cast around as if to plan an escape route. Unsatisfied with the narrow aisle between tables, she buried her ashen face in her hands instead and flopped back down in her seat. “He didn't. I’m just being stupid. Or crazy. Or. I don't know!”

“Marinette.” Adrien heard the tremor in his voice from the enforced calm in his head, the calm that kept him from rushing straight to Gabriel Agreste’s office and demand what the hell has he been telling the distraught woman he couldn't possibly leave now. “Marinette, what did father tell you?”

“Nothing,” she said miserably. “He didn't say anything. Not to me--”

“Then who?”

“My co-interns. They said--- well, they said you’ve always been a good son. And they're right, you know. You can't deny that.”

“Try me.”

“They said… They said you’d find a girl who can follow Gabriel Agreste. You can't possibly do everything, after all, despite what they seem to be training you for. It's stupid. I'm stupid. Please, Adrien.”

He stared at her, her blue eyes still downcast and her shoulders slumped, processing what she thought was happening, his brain slow and sludged. 

“Say something. Please?”

“Well,” Adrien obliged, licking his lips to wet them. “You can.”

“...what?”

“You can take over as the main designer after my dad, but I've always thought you wanted to build your own brand.”

Marinette goggled at him. 

He scratched behind his ear in embarrassment, once again relieved that she probably didn't in fact just hate him after all. “But we're both kinda jumping over a lot of other steps before that, you know?”

Idly, he wondered if Marinette could manage to flush any redder and if any of the rosiness would remain later, a natural rouge on her cheeks--her lips he could take care for her, if she'd let him. 

“And honestly, that’s not why I’m asking you out.”

“I asked you out first,” she muttered, avoiding his more than likely goopy gaze at her.

“Hey.”

When she kept on glaring at the framed picture above his head, he inelegantly pried her hands apart and held them both in his. Finally, she looked at their joined hands, sighed, and met his eyes.

"There is no catch, Marinette,” he promised her. “I really like you. And when I’m with you, I really like me.”

"Oh," she said, so softly, he only knew from the shape of her lovely mouth. 

“I like how you make me hungry.” He kissed one hand. ”For croissants and donut holes and honey cakes.” He kissed the other. “For everything you. 

“For life. You make me ravenous for life. 

“So please, let me know you."

He heart plummeted when she shook her head firmly. "But I feel like I do know you," she said.

“And?” Adrien was breathless.

“And I still like you. I might even… like you even more now.”

“Still?”

"Yes. Still! I've always liked you, Adrien. And I've been terrified all these years that I'm not--I mean you're  _ you _ !"

"And  _ you're _ you," he returned wonderingly. "Haven't you been listening?"

They laughed at themselves, at how stupid they’ve both been.

"Marinette, may I kiss you?"   
  
Technically speaking, she kissed him first, too. Her lips tasted of the sweetness of the champagne and laced with the bitter kick of the Camembert. He kissed her again after the first course--he could mentally hear Plagg gagging at the sentiment had he been there--to see if her mouth tasted like the aioli in her sandwich. And again after the second course, to taste her,  just her, really. Never mind their tangled legs, the table was quite conveniently small. It was cold outside. They kept warm.

After nine long years of pining, Chat Noir, Adrien Agreste, was finally letting Ladybug go.

After lunch, after they in turns descended the cafe basement to use the haunted restroom, after they sheepishly determined that neither of them had the slightest sixth sense to be able to tell if it really was, Adrien burned his evidence box in the Dupain-Cheng's fireplace. It was no longer important for him to know if Marinette had indeed been his partner during his days as Chat Noir. He couldn’t risk allowing Marinette to think that he loved her as some sort of shade, some sort of replacement for a past love. Never, Adrien promised himself, never would he ever let Marinette feel like she is needed, wanted,  _ loved _ , for anything less than herself. 

After the late business meeting Adrien managed to attend that evening, he told his father he was dating Marinette Dupain-Cheng with a hopeful intention. 

 

* * *

 

 

_ What do you mean? Oooh _ __  
_ When you nod your head yes _ __  
_ But you wanna say no _ __  
  
Adrien groaned when the Beiber hit came on, certain his best friend chose the song on purpose, to cement his weeks-long ear worm into something permanently scarring. 

"I hope there's a mountain of cheese waiting for me backstage," the disembodied voice warned. 

"I hope you stick around and wait for me to get you said cheese after," Adrien returned, rolling his shoulders in yet another attempt to shrug off tension. "Showtime, Plagg."

As he had done hundreds of times before, Adrien Agreste stepped on the runway, head held high and limbs flowing into fluid motion, symmetrical and carefully exaggerated to appear as natural as breathing, cavalier to the point of self-effacement, a mere vehicle for the clothing upon his body, the main attraction. It was all muscle memory, his walk, practiced to perfection, his father's, and everyone knew of just how impeccable Gabriel Agreste aesthetics were---his son was but another masterpiece. Through the thinning fabric of the makeshift cowl, Adrien saw one of Marinette's hands shooting to her mouth in muted hilarity, the other tugging at the microphone arm of her best friend in mock rage. She knew him. His face had been hidden by space helmets or made up to look like a museum wall, but she'd still recognize him by his walk. He could see her large eyes impossibly widen in both dread and anticipation as he approached, now shaking her head at what she knew was coming. 

  
_ You’re so indecisive of what I’m saying _ __  
_ Trying to catch the beat, make up your heart. _ __  
_ Don't know if you're happy, or complaining _ .   
  
  
He wore three of her works, individual pieces that happened to match seamlessly. The handmade derby hat that hid his ears was her first work that caught Adrien's eye when they were in  __ college , particularly memorable for the pigeon feather detail and for winning the school's design contest, judged by Gabriel Agreste himself. Ironically, the motif of the akumatized victim Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated just minutes before the contest's judging had been pigeon. 

The fall coat was ankle length, designed to mimic a black panther’s coat that rippled with each stride Adrien made, reminiscent of the predator’s muscles tensing in preparation for the hunt. It was the piece the twenty-year old Marinette made in her 3rd year in fashion school, the very item that qualified her for the coveted five-month internship in AH, the same internship that allowed them to rekindle their friendship beyond their phones. 

The third piece was well-worn and well-loved. As a fourteen year old, he would have been devastated to learn that the gift carelessly presented as his father’s came from the measured hands of the classmate seated behind him. Alya insisted on including it, a bit exasperated though unsurprised that Marinette had never told her fiancé the truth behind the pale blue scarf. 

 

_ When you don't want me to move _ __  
_ But you tell me to go _ __  
_ What do you mean? _ __  
_ What do you mean? _ __  
_ Said we’re running out of time _ _  
_ __ What do you mean?

 

Adrien took his turn around Marinette, deftly avoiding her outstretched hands but letting them catch an edge of the scarf. He pulled away and let the cloth fall from his neck, its cerulean vivid in the semi darkness, its clingy form twining about her bare arms. 

“Work it, handsome boy!” he heard her yell after his retreating back.

Tsk, his queen was underestimating him. She really shouldn't be dropping her guard this early. 

Before another bemused “what do you mean” could blare from the speakers, Nino cut both the sounds and the white spotlights illuminating the makeshift runway with a dramatic blare of acoustic feedback.

"Come on, girls," Ayla snickered to the momentary darkness and the questioning murmurs. "It ain't a bachelorette party, if we're not sinning a little bit. Am I right?!"

Green strobe lights flared to life at the first thrum of the electric guitar, flickering and spinning in concert with the whines of the viola. Adrien dashed back down the catwalk, foil and head held low. The eerie shapes of his brightly dressed foes rose from behind the guests, leaping over or rolling under tables, skimming more than one leg or arm, judging from the startled shrieks. They surrounded him in jerky contortions that looked quite monstrous under the lights even from his vantage point. They fell in swoops as he lunged and parried in the stylized steps they had practiced the few afternoons they managed to steal from their various responsibilities. Adrien Agreste would never live down his reputation as the biggest cheese ball in his long-time fencing club. 

 

_ But from where does it stem _ __  
_ This strange feeling _ __  
_ Fascinating as much as it is _ __  
_ Disturbing _ __  
_ I shudder, stabbed by beauty _ __  
_ As if the knife _ _  
_ __ Is in my soul

 

Adrien approached his Marinette, the whites of her eyes, her bare arms, stark in the erratic lighting. He could see her shoulders tense as she gripped the seat of the metal chair on either side of her, tighter, tighter, as he came closer. The handle of his foil tapped once beneath her slacking jaw, tracing down her neck in tandem with her reflexive swallow, before he let it clatter to the floor between her legs, make her startle like a cat provoked. 

But he was the feline starring in this show, he determined with a smirk, even as he took off the hat and bequeathed it atop her head. The undertone of catcalls and whistles surged into a scream as the strobe lights skimmed over his ears. His princess couldn’t even recover enough to figure out what riled her guests quite so, squirming beneath the derby as her yet unknown knight swayed ominously before, undoing a button down his coat at each rasp of the vocals. When it was halfway undone, he sunk to all fours, sinuously crawling out of the fur as if molting, pushing himself to eye level with her, making certain she recognized him. 

 

__ The wound crosses my heart  
__ And I feel joy in sorrow  
_ This poison exhilarates  
_ __ To the point of madness

 

“Chat Noir,” she mouthed, clear as day under his night vision lens.

“At your service,” he said, taking a hand to mime a kiss over her knuckles.

 

__ It's the good that hurts  
__ When you love  
__ Everything is fine  
__ Your hate  
__ Takes pleasure  
__ If suffering is beauty  
_ Succumb to its charm  
_ __ And offer your tears

 

Chat Noir stretched to his full height just as the chorus hit, flicking his staff open to maim imaginary akumas around his princess, leaping over tables and dodging between tittering ladies. Between each exaggerated acrobatics, he noticed she kept deathly still, clutching at the coat he had divested. He was half distracted by the way the catsuit seemed to chafe in places it never had, wondering if it occurred to Plagg to make certain accommodations for the last sputters of growth he underwent in his early twenties.

_ Of course, I did _ , Plagg said indignantly.  _ Can’t you hear all the screaming around you? _

_ Oh.  _ Adrien felt quite suddenly conscious about parading in the skintight suit around their mutual friends.  _ But of course, you did. _

He slinked back to Marinette, a repentant cat in need of her attention. He wiggled her victory wiggle, much to the appreciation of the audience, before experimentally bucking his hips in time with the music. His attempts at seductively rolling his torso, however, soon degraded into a capering attempt at a moonwalk. Bowing sheepishly to the laughing crowd, he dropped on haunches once more, crawling to her legs, now letting the cool leather of the suit heat up against her skin.

_ Is it really you, _ her mouth formed.  _ Chat Noir. _

He took her hands again, pulling them together only to peel them slowly apart, to expose her inner wrist to his lips,. He kissed each pulse point, chastely first. She jerked with a strangled gasp when his tongue darted out to sample a taste.

Not quite sitting on her lap, he balanced most of his weight on the balls of his feet, the back of his thighs bulging against the tops hers in his effort. He guided her fingers to his shoulders,  running them down the planes of his chest with a svelte pull on her elbows. She squeaked when her palms hit the ridiculous hardened nubs Plagg added in for exactly that reaction, judging from the kwami’s unrepentant snicker. He cupped her palms against his abdomen, daring her to dip quite low down his hips.

He took her hands to his lips once more, when her ragged breathing snapped him away from the pleasure percolating beneath her touch. There was time enough for that later, he promised, letting her cup his face instead, letting a thumb run across the jut of his lower lip unmolested.

“Adrien?” she said uncertainly. “But who are you, really?”

“Me,” he said, leaning closer so she could see his eyes through the glow of his mask. 

Yours, his mouth shaped against hers.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Alya announced as Adrien whisked his bride away for a dramatic exit. “Let’s give it up for the future Mr. and Mrs. Agreste!”

 

* * *

 

 

Adrien wasn't sure how he managed to clear the jump into the bedroom window he had specifically left open for that purpose. Bad luck's affinity with black cats usually ran true in his case, though perhaps, Plagg's ostentatious wedding present to them included immunity just this once. It  was just as well; dropping his future wife featured nowhere in his to-do list for the night, not from a rooftop, anyway.

Marinette had clung to him throughout the entire trip, face tucked against his neck, as she was wont to after prolonged separations caused by their work. She didn't pull away, even after he had lain her on their bed. Adrien repositioned himself so his shoulder pillowed her head, their limbs intertwined. He was quite careful with his tail during the show---it would be hard to explain a prehensile costume piece, Hollywood effects or what not---but now it stroked the sheets in lazy circles behind him, even as he smoothed her midnight hair back into its coiffure. 

"You're my Adrien," she murmured against collarbone. 

"Yes."

"And you're Chat Noir."

"One and the same."

"You've been here all this time."

"I could hardly stay away, princess."

"But you've been hiding, you naughty cat."

"Punishment's in order."

"Oh indeed."

If that was her idea of punishment, Adrien would gladly subject himself to her judgement any day of the week. Marinette's mouth started where she was already conveniently positioned, started with a dusting of tiny kisses up his neck and behind his ear, then lazily, down his jawline. The hands he held now gripped his wrists, pulling his arms over his head as she repositioned herself in their bed, pressing his fists against the headboard as she pitched forward.

He groaned when she finally settled down, when he felt the heat of her sex against his belly. His skin-tight catsuit was evidently skin-thin against certain things, forget about the lacy underthings she wore that didn’t betray their lines against unforgiving fabrics. They were no protection against him, anyway.

Belatedly, he realized the rustling about him had been her primly arranging her skirt, the imperial red now spilling over black leather, over gray Egyptian cotton. Marinette admired him from her perch, nonplussed. As if on a regular basis she straddled superheroes, lorded over their hot and bothered mess of a semi-retired body, queenly. He snorted at her in disbelief. 

“It wrinkles,” she murmured as she sought his lips. Hers puckered against his, a mockery of their goodbye pecks on hectic mornings, before latching on to his lower lip.

“Get rid of it then.” He surged up to deepen their kiss, hands errant about her exposed midriff, careful with his claws. 

“Great. That’s all I am to the legendary Chat Noir: a heated scratching post.”

But their mouths mated and his quip, so belated, lost its edge against the bold strokes of her tongue. In her defense, she did try to wriggle out of the impeccably tailored bodice, but all she could manage was hitch her blouse higher to reveal more of her belly, the swell of her breasts straining underneath. He pounced for the spreading temptation of skin, scraping teeth against the delicate flesh there as he reached for more of the fullness still coddled by her brassiere. 

She mewled in protest when he shifted their positions, sitting up and rearranging her on her back, sinking back between her legs to work on the conundrum of lacy underthings once again. Having managed to nudge her blouse over her breasts now, he focused his attention on the nub pebbling against the lace of the partially displaced bra. He engulfed it with his mouth, provoking the angry little bug with his tongue till its owner pulled him up instead for more drugging, lazy kisses.

In a daze, Adrien pulled away from his bride, knowing he needed to spare poor Plagg from what their… activities were leading to, quite painfully aware he needed the suit off him for obvious reasons. Marinette watched him through half-lidded eyes, looking decidedly wrinkled as she gasped for air. They have made love countless times on the very same bed, but there was something sacred in their imminent joining tonight, something intoxicating in the knowledge that when she looked at him, she saw both Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir, two aspects of one man, all hers.

“You can’t possibly have any idea,” he confessed. “How much I love you, my lady.” 

He felt her stiffen beneath him even before he saw her blue eyes widen, clear to full wakefulness.

_ Shit. _ All the contents of his evidence box surged to memory in one breathless go. With all his drama at burning the damn thing, he still fucked up when it mattered the most.  _ Shit, shit, shit _ ! 

"Marinette," he managed. "This isn't what it looks like."

She wouldn't be reacting like this unless she knew he had only ever used that endearment with one other person. 

Ladybug. 

Her. 

" _ Ma reine _ ... Please say something."

When she finally did, her tone was level, cool. "Did you plan this?" 

"What? No! I mean, yes. Yes, I did plan to confess that I am Chat Noir and--alright, alright!---maybe seduce you a little, but---"

"How long have you known?"

"...Mari?" All the worst case scenarios he imagined for tonight didn't seem to match what seemed to be unfolding, and yet… His stomach flipped into a knot. "Wait. How long have I known what?"

"That I was Ladybug, Chat!" she spat, lifting herself with her elbows in order to catch his eyes. "You planned this didn't you? You couldn't get close enough to me in uniform, when we were both caught up in our  _ responsibilities _ to the citizens, so you went behind my back---"

"I never!" The lie twisted in his heart even as he said it. "Not on purpose. And anyway I was never sure."

"Liar."

"Do you really believe that, Marinette? Do you really believe I plotted all of our years together so I can act upon--"

"An obsession? A compulsive need to p-play with me?!"

"Is that all you thought I felt, Ladybug? That I needed to capture you just for the sake of it?"

"Yes." She sat up completely, twisting away to clutch at the forlorn looking throw pillow behind her. "No. I've looked for you, too, Chat. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Probably for the same reason you didn't tell me? Because we were both doing our best to live on after what we felt the best of ourselves have left us behind for good? Look at me, Mari."

"Who are you?" she managed.

"Mari!"

"Who are you really?"

"Who I've always been!" Adrien cried, releasing Plagg with a twist of the ring he hasn't worn in years. 

The kwami merely rubbed his tail against his charge's face before zipping away, a rueful wave thrown towards Adrien’s crying fiancée. 

"I'm your Adrien. We're getting married at the city hall on Friday night. We're getting married at that tiny chapel near my old school on Saturday morning. We're flying to Rome on--"

"Married?" She said it a matter of factly, voice devoid of the accusation and hurt brimming from her eyes, from the set of her jaw. "How? How are we getting married when I don't know even know who you are."

"You take that back, Marinette."

"I don't know you."

Adrien felt the vise about his chest grip even tighter at her denial. He stared back at her, desperately seeking anything that would render her declaration a lie. A mistake.

"Take that back right now," he said. “Please.”

"No."

Adrien wasn't sure how long they sat there, her crumpled in her silks, him exposed in his boxer shorts, all the things he wanted to explain thickening into the air, into the choking silence. There was nothing else to do at this point but leave, then; he was only hurting her with his presence. He ran a hand over his head and face, reclaiming some order about his mussed hair if not his thoughts. He dressed quickly, finding a pair of jeans and a shirt from the pile of their clothes he had laundered just yesterday, still sitting on the basket by their bathroom door. 

"Sorry, I dragged you into this, buddy," he murmured as he grabbed the basalt statuette off the kitchen table on his way out. 

"Where are you going?" Marinette's voice floated from their bedroom. "Adrien?"

"Sleep it off, Mari," he managed to call back to her. "Things will look better in the morning."

He hoped.

"Adrien,” she repeated. “Where are you going?"

He closed the door behind him before he ran back to her and do something he'd later regret. 

tbc

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1\. For brevity’s sake, as gathered by osmosis from wikipedia, college is like junior high, grades 6e, 5e, 4e, 3e. Lycee is like high school, Seconde grade, Primiere grade, and Terminale grade. After, the kids sit for their baccalaureate exam in order to get their diploma.
> 
> 2\. Marinette went directly to fashion school. Adrien took two years of preparatory course before going taking entrance exams for elite university (both of them seems to graduate with a degree equivalent to a Masters?)
> 
> 3\. Miko-chan points out on a regular basis that boyband pining songs suit Adrien best. I took it a step forward and got a Justin Bieber song.
> 
> 4\. The not-really-a-striptease song was recced by Miko-chan again, Le Bien Qui Fait Mal from Mozart l’opera rock using [this translation](http://i-traduis.blogspot.com/2009/11/le-bien-qui-fait-mal-translation.html?m=1), from a blog called Not so lost in Translation. The not-really-a-striptease was inspired by Jenna Dewan-Tatum’s Lip Sync Battle performance of Ginuwine’s Pony.


	3. Chapter 3: Theirs (side A)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette is looking for Adrien

Marinette wasn’t sure how long they sat in silence, unmoving, as she tried to make sense of the thoughts wreaking havoc in her head. The bemused relief that jellied every joint in her body when she found out Adrien was indeed her long lost Chat Noir was readily engulfed by the first explosion of betrayal she felt when she realized he had known she had been Ladybug. Why didn’t he tell her? Why did he let her wonder where and how he was doing all this time when he could have just told her? They were partners for the longest time. If he had found out by accident as he claimed, shouldn’t it have been part of the unspoken trust they’ve held for each other that he come clean and tell her? And now this, two days before their wedding and… how were they going to fix this?

She felt the bed dip then release when he rolled out of it, watched the shadows and moonlight play on his bare form as he bent down to retrieve clothes, followed the lines of his body shift as he pulled his shirt over his head and then yanked his jeans up, cat-like in efficiency and speed. Now that Adrien and Chat Noir had merged in her mind as one, it was impossible to separate the two, impossible to believe how she could have never guessed at the truth.

But why did she have to in the first place, her mind flared once again. He could have told her. She trusted him. She trusted both of him. What was so wrong with just telling her—he had eight years’ worth of opportunity.

So she did think it, Marinette admitted to herself. He had in the past reminded her of Chat Noir, especially once they became closer and Adrien started loosening up, really loosening up around her. She could have asked, she supposed, though really, how was that conversation supposed to go down? Hey, Adrien, you remind me of a certain cat-suited superhero. You wouldn’t happen to be secretly him right? Even with Ladybug’s luck she couldn’t be so fortunate.

_And anyway, I was never sure._

Marinette buried her face in her hands and groaned. She needed to talk to him properly and tell her insecurities to go scratch. They only had three days—two now—to fix this!

“Where are you going?” she asked, realizing for the first time that he had been changing into going out clothes. “Adrien?”

“Sleep it off, Mari,” his voice came faintly from somewhere outside their bedroom. “Things will look better in the morning.”

No.

No, no, no, no.

“Adrien,” she repeated. “Where are you going?”

The door clicked shut, final and resolute.

It took Marinette a few minutes of stupidly wondering at the silence drenching their home, before panic set in, before she launched herself off their bed and ran out to chase after her fiancé.

How stupid could she be? Of course, she didn’t want him to leave! She was just upset and… and relieved! That she wasn’t going crazy, that there was a rational reason why the man she was about to marry, particularly of late, constantly reminded her of a man she had adamantly kept at bay for years before completely losing contact with. She was blindly lashing out because she was angry at how stupid they both were, at how stupid she had been, fretting about being curious about the whereabouts of a man she couldn’t forget, when she was poised to marry a man she loved more than the world.

Guilt, she realized, even as she felt her knees weaken with it. She had been racked with guilt for not being able to stop thinking about Chat Noir even days before her wedding to Adrien Agreste. What would have happened had Chat Noir appeared out of nowhere anyway? She would have a chance for closure, of course. It wasn’t like she would suddenly throw over Adrien—what the hell had she been stewing about anyway? But now that she knew they’re the same person, she wasn’t even sure what to feel. She loved them both in different ways and now suddenly… she could have them both. She could love them both.

But what did it matter? He left! She drove him away with her childish tantrum and her hurtful words. Of course he would leave. She told him he didn’t know him.

A monumental lie. Whether as Adrien or as Chat Noir, she knew him. She knew him like the back of her hand. Like the other side of her soul.

Not for the first time, she thanked her stars Adrien could be such a hopeless romantic, insisting on a landline, a black enamel rotary phone of all things in their living room. Just in case, he said.

Just in case I suffer a gigantic bout of idiot, Marinette thought to herself grimly as she dialed and waited for him to pick up.

“Adrien!” she yelled but what responded was only the polite professional greeting that preceded his voice mail recording.

“I’m so sorry for lashing out,” she told it. “I don’t understand myself. All I know is that I was so relieved to find out you really are Chat. And so frightened that you… You only stayed with me because I was Ladybug. Which is STUPID. I KNOW. I know. But please. Please let’s talk. Let’s… Help me figure it out, Adrien. Please.”

She ran downstairs, up and down their street, circled the block. Of course, he had been long gone. She called him countless times before it even occurred to her to call other people.

“I’m a bit surprised to be hearing from you so soon, Marinette,” Alya said smugly when she picked up after several rings. “You’re welcome.”

“Alya, do you know where Adrien is?”

“If not _in_ you, I’m assuming somewhere very near?”

“Please, this is no time for jokes! Is he there?”

“I don’t think so.” Marinette could hear the frown in Alya’s voice. “Marinette, what is going on–?”

“I’m stupid, that’s what’s going on. Just—can you look, please? I need to talk to him. It’s important.”

Marinette held on as Alya circulated the bachelorette party, the heavy bass of dance hits pounding against the designer’s head in a maddening pace, a race with her heart. She could hear Alya accost Nino, yelling over the noise, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“Mari!” the DJ hollered at her ear some minutes later. “Adrien doesn’t seem to be here—trust me, after the heat that went down earlier, we’d know. I’ll check up in the game room and text you.”

“No, Nino, I’m calling from home. I left my purse there, with my phone.”

Thankfully, Nino didn’t press for details either. “All right. I’ll call you back at this number.”

It was only about fifteen minutes later that he called, but it was all Marinette could do to stay put on the couch and not run back out into the night to look aimlessly. Nino confirmed that Adrien had not been sighted, pointing out that that didn’t mean he wouldn’t turn up later, and that he’d call immediately if they heard or saw anything.

Marinette called Izumi Hina, who had murmured her goodbye and congratulations after her turn at the fashion show, apologizing about her babysitter needing to leave soon. She lived with her toddler son, at an apartment building across the shop and saw the empty and shuttered shop front, the unlit windows of the 2nd floor dormitory. Adrien was not at the Duchess.

She called her dad, let the phone ring a couple of times before hanging up. Somehow she couldn’t bear that, risking her father to think badly of Adrien when it had been her stupidity that caused all this. She would be able to explain to her dad, though perhaps not now in her current state, but her mom might not even let her.

She called the backline of Adrien’s office, finding the number on the neat list of emergency contacts tacked on the freezer door. They’ll connect her to him somehow. He always needed to be reachable to them, just in case he was needed at the company.

“Sanceour speaking.”

“Please,” Marinette said. “I need to speak with Adrien.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience, but there are other channels of communication more appropriate, Miss…?”

“It’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Please, Nathalie, would you be able to get a hold of Adrien for me?”

“I am under strict orders not to bother him with company matters for the entire week.”

“It’s not a company matter! I don’t know where else to call and I don’t know the number to the mansion off the top of my head. Can you please help me?”

“He’s not in his father’s home, that much I can tell you. I’m sorry, Marinette.”

Nathalie did sound like she was sorry at least and knew better than to ask prying questions. Immediately after Marinette hung up, the phone rang with Nino on the line, telling her that they found Adrien’s cellphone with his clothes in the makeshift backstage of the fashion show, that he had probably left them there after changing into his Chat Noir costume.

“Don’t tell me he’s wandering about Paris in that cat suit,” Nino said with a snort. “People might think Chat Noir is back in town.”

“He better not have left,” Marinette said weakly before hanging up.

Marinette redialed the backline number once again and asked for Gabriel Agreste, who surprisingly deigned to have her connected.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng, if I remember correctly, you told me three years ago that I shall no longer be bothered by the contrariness of one pigheaded son,” he said. “Why then are you calling me at eleven in the evening, demanding his whereabouts? It sets a bad precedence for his new keeper, don’t you think?”

“Please, Mr. Agreste,” Marinette said, willing herself to stay calm in face of the man’s sardonic needling. “Adrien and I had a misunderstanding and—and I need to fix it now. He doesn’t have his phone with him. Do you—would you happen to know where he is?”

“He should be at his bachelor’s party.”

“But he isn’t there—”

Adrien’s father continued coolly. “Unless the boy chose to completely ignore the pains his management team went through in setting up a celebration appropriate to his status.”

“He wouldn’t,” Marinette assured automatically and without even thinking.

But of course, he wouldn’t. Perhaps, Adrien really was heading there, at a dance club in the Champ-Elysees area. He was just telling her earlier that he needed to make an appearance. Adrien wouldn’t blow off his team mates, not even after his fiancée threw a tantrum at him. He would properly make an appearance, professional smile in place, personable but distant, perhaps poised to make an important announcement about his engagement being canceled…

“You’re in the townhome, I presume?” her soon-to-be father-in-law was speaking again.

“Yes, Mr. Agreste.”

“I’ll have Nathalie send a car for you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And Marinette.”

“Yes?”

“Do make yourself presentable, child. You represent the Agreste name now.”

She didn’t care what the freaking press said at this juncture, but managed to hold her tongue. Adrien might not care either at this point, but he would when faced with the fall out later. She had to protect something of his, after all.

“I would never embarrass him,” she muttered fiercely.

“Or willfully hurt him. Wash your face, Marinette.”

Marinette laughed bitterly to herself as she closed up the townhome, sat down at the stairs to wait for the promised car.

What a day it was, to be reprimanded by one Gabriel Agreste for hurting his son. What a day, when she had vowed to herself that she would never make Adrien ever feel like his father did.

Who knew that she’d break that promise before they’ve even exchanged their vows?

 

* * *

 

Nino was worried about Adrien, Alya was saying.

Marinette froze, seized by a reflexive fear for her long-time classmate. One would expect someone like Adrien Agreste to be prime pickings for Hawkmoth to akumatize, but Ladybug has never had to fight him over the past eight years. As far as she knew, anyway.

Now that Alya was relaying Nino’s concerns over a suddenly distant and aloof Adrien, she had a sudden urge to rush to him, perhaps proactively prevent him from turning. She didn’t know how, but she would damn well try. She didn’t think she could bear going back to that cycle so soon. Hawkmoth caught people at the height of rage, a state of warring emotions they might have otherwise safely ridden through without the immediate means to express them. The cleansing of the akumatized victim could be difficult enough. The real danger was in the second fight, in separating the weaponized reaction from the person that unwittingly produced it.

Marinette had Tikki to talk her through the immediate aftermath and through the lassitude that sometimes caught her, the jadedness that tempted at the edge of her focus–why couldn’t these people control themselves better, an unfair question, Tikki would remind her.

She started discussing it with Chat Noir in the later years, to keep him sane, she said. To keep her sane. Though when they spoke, it was in more general terms, as she was careful to not reveal her personal connections to the akumatized victim. The post-fight debriefings helped them keep focus on their missions and undoubtedly strengthened their partnership to ironclad.

It was finally over. She could barely stand, all the years of tension catching up with her in form of a general, lingering malaise that her parents thought she had caught some novel flu strain from the usual wave of June tourists, but she was just tired from the last few weeks, the last fight–or so she thought. And now Adrien was the problem? After being somehow passed over all these years, he was going to be villain, too? What if she couldn’t take it? What if after the strain of the past few weeks, she’d finally run out of forgiveness?

What if she ended up hating him even after cleansing him free of akuma, the final straw she thought she had managed to elude in Hawkmoth’s defeat?

Tikki would coax her through these unreasonable worries–right before a fight that might not even happen, how silly of her—but Tikki was resting. Tikki wasn’t here.

That’s right, Marinette thought, the realization stilling her legs from sprinting. Tikki was hibernating. She would have awakened if Hawkmoth had really returned. For now, Hawkmoth was banished and couldn’t possibly return just a few days later. Tikki didn’t give her time frames as to how long Hawkmoths resurfaced after being defeated, but it seemed like a decades-after sort of thing.

Marinette chuckled despite herself and collapsed back on her pillows, wiggling to dig out the tangle of blanket and a Bac reviewer from underneath her.

“Are you all right, Marinette?” Alya asked cautiously, feeling for her forehead and neck suddenly. “I’m going to call your mom.”

“I’m fine, Alya!” Marinette said. And she was. “Sorry, I just suddenly remembered something. Anyway, about Adrien.”

“He missed school for as long as you did. He hasn’t been feeling well, but Nino is worried because Adrien hasn’t been responding to calls.”

Adrien had been under a lot of pressure the last two years of _lycée_. It wasn’t like Marinette couldn’t tell, even though the sunny model always had a smile ready for them, was always his kind self. He had extra lessons on top of school and fencing, and seemed to only get more popular, with not only Paris now but a good chunk of Europe obviously not getting enough of him. Marinette had been watching him over the years, not just for the obvious reason of her massive crush, but because she was wary of him being akumatized. Tikki didn’t think he was necessarily at risk, because Hawkmoth tended to pounce on the momentary, initial flare of a person wanting to lash out. If Adrien’s was more of a constant, he might have ways in place to negotiate his way around the negative emotions, unless he suddenly reached some breaking point.

But that sounds even worse, Marinette had fretted back then. She had time to fret over hypothetical things then. That was before the akuma fights had gotten to the point where they really couldn’t watch specific worrisome elements anymore because there was too much clean up to do.

“I’ll talk to him,” Marinette said. “We’ll probably both have to take the Bac late and there’s only one remaining date left.”

Alya raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Not that I’m doubting your sincerity, Mari, but we all know how you are around Adrien “Sun God” Agreste.“

Marinette waved that away. "Trust me. I’ll talk to him.”

“Good. Nino is worried about what would happen after we graduate, because now, Adrien’s father would have an excuse to not let him see Adrien as often. And we won’t have school to check on him.”

“But it’s summer. At least he should be allowed to enjoy some of it.”

“Nino said Adrien’s schedule has been pretty rigid recently, so it’ll probably only get worse now that school is out. He had been harder to keep track of the past few months. Kinda like you actually, now that I think about it.”

Marinette sighed, unable to deny that last part. “Well, it has been stressful for all of us. I’m trying to not worry about the Bac so much since we’ve been preparing for it for a while now. I’m more nervous about the schools I applied to, so I’m definitely looking to you to distract me over the break.”

“Like you have to ask.” Alya was grinning at her, notebook in hand and apparently full of half-realized summer plans. “I’ve missed you, girl.”

With all of Marinette’s righteous intent to coax Adrien into opening up, when she was actually sitting beside the model in an otherwise empty classroom, waiting for the test proctor to come, it was all she could do to swallow her heart back into its proper place.

Alya was right. Between her own frequent absences and tardiness, paired with Adrien’s hectic schedule, she hasn’t seen much of him the past six months. He was almost a foot taller than her now, filling up a space that seemed so broad and intimidatingly bigger when set against the slim prepubescent _collegian_ in her memory. He had lost weight too though this seemed more recent. The angle of his chin was too sharp and there were dark circles under the green eyes that lacked the luster that even in his saddest days usually managed to surface.

If she had ever thought of Adrien as unapproachable, she knew that it was all in her mind, all because she was too flustered by the idea of breathing the same air as a person as gorgeous and nice as he was. She’d never have called him intimidating before, not really.

Adrien had a reviewer spread before him, though he hasn’t turned a page for the last fifteen minutes. His shoulders were squared and his arms crossed in front of him. Leave me alone, his body said. Don’t bother me.

Well, she wouldn’t. She promised. She wouldn’t bother him, but she couldn’t just leave him alone.

“Hi!” she managed after a few more minutes of loin-girding. “Long time no see, Adrien.”

“Hm. We saw each other the last day of classes,” he observed. “Was that last Wednesday?”

“Two weeks ago, at least. You’ve been sick, too?”

“I’m fine now.”

Marinette chewed on her lower lip, unsure of how to proceed now. Nino was right. Adrien for as long as they had known him always tried to break out of his funk. He was such a considerate boy that he always tried for Nino, for them, to try to appear engaged, would even go out of his way to rescue someone like Marinette from her apparent incapacity for small talk.

She of all people should know how it was like to reach one’s limit, to be exhausted of a cycle that didn’t seem to have an end in sight. Even Adrien should be entitled to an off day. Why did they want to see him fake a smile just so they could all feel better about themselves, just so they didn’t feel helpless at their inability to cheer him up?

Why wasn’t he allowed to feel terrible for even a few moments? Wasn’t that the whole issue with becoming an akuma? Because Hawkmoth was stealing this moment from people and morphing them into something grotesque instead of allowing them to sort through their emotions. Adrien should be left alone to feel what he was feeling.

Still, Marinette had a niggling suspicion that if she left Adrien alone, he might never find his way back to them on his own. He might find that precedence too convenient, might find it easier to shut them all out instead of realizing that he could ask for their help, could at the very least have their presence as support.

No, Marinette thought to herself. She couldn’t hide behind Nino or Alya now. It was her turn. Even if it annoyed him to the point he’d avoid her in the future, right now she felt it deep in her bones: Adrien was drowning in something and she shouldn’t leave him alone just because it was no longer her problem, no longer her risk.

She squared her shoulder and steeled herself to the monotone responses she was sure to receive.

“Alya and I are planning on exploring the city, like a tourist experience of some sort. Do you have any plans for the summer?”

“Work,” Adrien said. “That’s pretty much all there is.” His expression softened; perhaps Marinette hadn’t schooled her face well enough for that one, feeling the strain of sustaining the small smile pull on her jaw and ears. “There’s nothing else yet. I haven’t had the chance to talk to Nino, but I’m sure he’ll be down with joining you ladies for the catacombs or something.”

“We’ll hold your place in the lines,” Marinette promised.

“Not all three hours of it. That would suck.”

“If you’re really that keen on standing under the sun while being jostled by people, you ought to at least wear a disguise.”

“Haha.”

Marinette didn’t realize how tense she had been the entire exchange until the test proctor arrived. She sagged into her chair in relief, wondering at how she ended up in such a situation: she’d rather be neck deep in a life-defining exam than talk to a benumbed, dampened Adrien like that.

 

* * *

 

As promised, the Agreste’s family car came to pick up Marinette. Champ Elysees was the first stop. She barely registered the glam and the glitz, the call of the impeccably dressed shop fronts, designed to lure the most discerning fashionistas from all over the world. She stumbled out of the limousine, terribly un-Agrest-ive, Adrien, Chat might say, straightening her skirt and her hair upon remembering her father-in-law’s admonishment.

The perks of being quite tinier than average was that Marinette could slink through quite tiny spaces in between people. When the waiting patrons became more tightly packed just in front of the blazing neon Pegasus and Bellerophon statues flanking each side of the entrance, she resorted to the careful application of elbows and shoulders.

“I need to get into Adrien Agreste’s bachelor party, please,” she bellowed over the crowd’s din.

“Name.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

The massive man quickly browsed through his hand held device. “Not on the list.”

“I’m his fiancée. Google me if you need, too.”

For the first time in her short but exasperating tenure under the scrutiny of the media, she was glad there was enough unsolicited pictures of her floating around the Internet, branding her as the young woman—or the shameless harlot, depending on the website—who had managed to bag one of Paris’s most eligible bachelors.

“Please, I need to talk to him.”

“Sorry, Miss Dupain-Cheng. If you’re not in the guest list, I can’t let you through. Now please step back. Go to end of the line, if you want to wait to go through to the general dance floor.”

“But Adrien hates being crowded in for too long. What if he leaves before I get in?”

“Honestly, miss, you’re probably not going to get in till 4 am.”

“Even if she’s with me?” the familiar haughty tone sent Marinette’s stomach folding into itself.

Just her luck. Of all evenings to run into Chloe Bourgeois.

“If you’re in the guest list, you can bring in your date,” answered the gatekeeper, unperturbed by Chloe’s manner. “Name?”

“You can’t possibly not recognize me, the only daughter of your very own regional president!”

"No. And if you’re not interested in being checked against the guest list, you’ll have to go to the end of the line like everyone else.”

“I am Chloe Bourgeois and I’m quite above everyone else.”

“You’re not in the guest list, Miss Bourgeois. I’m sorry you’ll have to pretend to be like everyone else for the night or you won’t get in.”

“Well! I have never in my life been insulted–”

“Seriously, Chloe, have you forgotten all of our years in school together?” Marinette said dully. “I’m a little hurt you don’t remember any of my finely crafted comebacks–not gonna lie. Besides, you RSVP’d ‘no,’ remember?”

“I’m one of the groom’s closest childhood friends. I shouldn’t have to do anything as pointless as RSVP. You should all assume I might change plans and arrive after all.”

“Let’s just get away from here. I can’t hear myself think.”

“And I can’t believe the bride herself isn’t on the list!” Chloe made yet another attempt to get in. “There must be some sort of mistake.”

“Just… Chloe, I can’t deal with you right now.”

There must have been something in Marinette’s voice that halted even Chloe’s rampage. The blonde socialite gave the designer a hard look, both hands on her hips.

“Well, this is rich!” Chloe said with a bark of laughter. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng suffering a bout of wedding blues. You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“No,” Marinette lied as she pushed her way through the crowd. “Not if you keep pestering me, so maybe you should come along.”

“What? You know I don’t do that whole hurt-comfort thing you plebeians indulge in–”

“That’s right. Keep me pissed off enough, so I’d focus on trying to get you in there and away from me.”

“Were you being nasty like this to Adrien that he actually came to his senses and canceled your engagement? He should have kept the Oxygen Source concert, in lieu of returning gifts.”

“You’re nasty all the time and he’s still your friend, so I’d hazard a no?”

“I don’t have to listen to this.”

Marinette grabbed the blonde’s coattails, before she could strut back to where the club bouncers were.

“Let go or you’ll rip the seams and expose yourself for the fraud you are.”

In spite of herself, Marinette blinked and squinted over the unnatural neons of the club signage. Chloe was wearing a black, form-hugging suit jacket, a silk blouse with a plunging neckline lined with a chandelier necklace, a pair of flared leather pants, and deadly stilettos.

“How dare you pair that jacket with those pants–” Marinette started, a little flattered that her old teenage rival was dolled up in Duchess creations.

“Oh, shut up about my pants.”

“You’ve completely ruined the silhouette.”

“You’ve completely ruined your wedding.”

Marinette’s mouth snapped shut, only her long term dislike of the woman before her keeping her from dissolving to tears. Crying in front of Chloe might as well be tantamount to giving up on Adrien. Who knew what kind of nasty comments she’d spread to the press? Marinette promised herself she wasn’t going to embarrass Adrien on top of everything else.

“It’s not that I’m against your marrying my childhood friend,” Chloe began speaking again, mysteriously looking uncomfortable at the prospect of… Marinette’s tears. Marinette wasn’t sure, but maybe it meant Chloe wasn’t going into indulge in a fit of bitch for once in her life tonight. “It’s just that you need to be trained in order to develop a stiff upper lip against these paparazzi.”

“Is that what the seven years of abuse from you has been about?”

“Machiavellian principles. Not abuse. So about this Oxygen Source concert…”

“What is this Oxygen Source you keep yammering about, anyway?”

“Didn’t you know? Adrien apparently had requested a music show instead of the usual drinking games and strippers formula. There are a few other bands playing overnight, but I’m more interested in Oxygen Source. They’re impossible to get tickets to nowadays. Rumor has it that they might have even come out of retirement because their lead guitarist was a jilted lover of Adrien’s mother and that he treats Adrien like a long lost son? It’s all very scandalous.”

At this, Marinette did let escape a few shuddering sobs, borne by both amusement and frustration. Her handsome boy could be so transparent sometimes. He probably planned on bringing her along when he made his appearance and had arranged it so that most of the attention wouldn’t have been on them at all. He was seriously the most ridiculous man in the entire planet…

“Now see here, Marinette! Instead of crying over spilled milk you should make up with Adrien. Oxygen Source couldn’t have gone far if they were canceled just tonight. They’re probably still at their hotels preparing to sue the Agrestes for breach of contract. He can still call–”

“He’ll definitely have cake,” Marinette said aloud. “He won’t allow a party to go on without a proper cake.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying, let’s be professional cake prissers.“

If the party organizers were truly going all out with details, Marinette was willing to bet that the cake was scheduled to be delivered right around the time Adrien and she were supposed to come. Otherwise, it would have melted before they came and, bless Adrien’s carbohydrate deprived diet, he would never let that happen.

With some confusion and a lot of increasingly hyperbolic comments from Chloe, Marinette managed to find the backdoor of the club, having to leap through a garbage bin and climb over a chain link fence. Chloe managed to amble along without much assistance, quite a feat in her formidable shoes. Just as Marinette predicted, several nondescript vans lined the back alley of the club, a number of them surrounded by people either ushering other people out or into through the kitchen’s back door.

Marinette grabbed Chloe’s hand and trotted to the door, just as the cake she predicted was being maneuvered out of the nearest van.

"And where is this cake going to be stored?” she asked in her best imitation of Chloe’s default tone.

“Excuse me?” retorted the harried gatekeeper. “Do I look like I give a-”

“Well, you should. One Celsius off the right temperature range and that cake would crumble. Now: point us to the right direction so we can make sure the room is pristine.”

“I’m gonna need some identification–”

“I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng, daughter of Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng, bakers and patisserie-chefs extraordinaire.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I’ve been to the Dupain-Cheng bakery. Your dad’s croissants are top notch.”

Marinette broke character in spite of herself, a grin splitting her face. “Aren’t they? But have you tried them with my mom’s signature ganache?”

“Is this the time and place for this tete-a-tete?” Chloe prompted. “Let us through before those guys get the cake here!”

“And who are you?”

“Her superv–”

“My personal assistant,” Marinette interrupted and plunged into the hot kitchen, pulling along the indignant socialite behind her. “Lead the way, Chloe.”

Ignoring the additional questions of the doorkeeper behind them, Marinette managed to escape from the kitchen by following the trail of briskly prepared bar food. She froze at the cacophony of lights and sounds that invaginated her head upon stepping out of the kitchen. Chloe took over from there—trust her to find the way to the VIP lounges, expertly sidling through bodies that were hot and sweaty from dancing and alcohol and other things. For all her affectations of being cultured and mannered, Chloe lost her senses, screaming and jumping around like a banshee when she found the aging ‘80s band still playing onstage of the private lounge, surrounded by a press of people Marinette could probably recognize under brighter lighting. She squeezed through, peering at faces intently. Adrien might be at the front where he could be quickly summoned to stage, but then again he might decide to stay low-key, mingling with his guests in his friendly, easy manner.

“Ms. Marinette?” a man bawled at her over the power ballad encore.

It was Mr. Millet, the current manager of Adrien’s modeling gigs, an eminently patient man who kept his cool in the toughest negotiations of Adrien’s time with Nathalie and Gabriel.

“Are you looking for Adrien?” he said before she could even open her mouth. “You just missed him.”

“He left?” Marinette said. “But he just got here!”

"He said you were indisposed and weren’t going to make it. So he dropped by to thank the team personally and Oxygen Source, of course. Did you know the bass guitarist was rumored to be one of Gabriel Agreste’s old indiscretions in his youth?”

“Adrien left?” Marinette repeated. “But he didn’t even have cake!”

“I thought that was strange, too.”

“Did he say where he’s going?”

“He was supposed to go back with you to the Pigalle party in about an hour. Perhaps, he went there early to announce your indisposition?”

“He didn’t even have cake…”

“Miss Marinette, whatever it was, I trust you’re feeling better now?”

Despite her best effort to turn her best face forward, all Marinette could do was shake her head 'no.’

 

* * *

 

Marinette was not a stiletto or platform heels type of girl. She was more of the ballet flats or sneaker type, with the occasional 5cm pumps or oxfords gracing her repertoire. Her usual professional and social circles thankfully didn’t necessitate her to deviate much from her habits, but when her exacting sensibilities dictated the drama of a bedazzled 10cm bear trap masquerading as footwear, she followed for the sake of her art. Thankfully, no one would question her sensibilities in a packed afternoon Metro, at least, not enough to write about the appalling lack of pizzazz in a disposable pair of cheetah-patterned flats.

Now, as she navigated the stark white halls of the museum and the glass-encased podiums of liquid crystal-dressed sculptures, she wondered if she should have practiced scuttling around on said 10cm bear traps while hauling ass across the tourist-filled Notre Dame courtyard and the uneven pavement leading to Cité station. Her date, with all his chivalric fantasies, practically bristled with excitement when she asked for his arm at the museum door. Had she been even two steps away from him, Marinette was sure most people would just assume she was his personal assistant or secretary. With them joined so intimately, hip to hip, arm in arm, with her exclaiming about the colors on the sculptures shifting at the movement of their hands around their glass cases and with him murmuring about the science behind the art, there was slim chance of denying anything.

This is it, Marinette, her mind reminded her, as all eyes in the room, both surreptitious and blatant, followed her. A few weeks ago, the rumor mill was abuzz over Adrien Agreste’s mysterious special someone, his long hiatus from modeling purportedly allowing him to nurture a romantic relationship, a mere cherry on top of the more invisible ripples he was making in the business end of his father’s fashion empire. He offered to deny their relationship to the press, but she knew that would only delay the inevitable, would only be discounted by the most avid paparazzo. Evidence from their few years of dating and the long years of friendship could easily be used to contradict their claim. They’ve been discreet, but as they had never needed to conceal themselves, someone would likely find some sort of proof, find incidental photos or former coworkers, invite more curiosity and scrutiny.

Despite himself, Adrien seemed startled when she agreed to join him tonight. As far as debut appearances go, the museum gala was a modest affair that would have attracted a conservative media coverage, wouldn’t have likely made enough of a blip among Adrien’s more rabid fanbase. They would take pictures of him and her, but would not hound them with questions. There would be other, more famous people attending that would keep the attention of the press. Also, Marinette was invited to the event on her own, having worked with the curator on a couple of exhibits during her university days.

No, Adrien was probably surprised because between his hectic schedule leading to his graduation at HEC and his formal job hunting and her non-stop preparation for the boutique she and Hina were opening, they barely had time to share proper meals, much less go on actual dates. Between her remaining obligations with the Agreste House, following her status change from a full-time to part-time employee, and the layered checklist she needed to finish in time for a fall launch of their boutique, Marinette was harried and tense. The last thing she needed was an intimidating public appearance… but the thought of designing and once again making something from scratch with her own two hands reenergized her. Designing and sewing her attire for tonight had been a pleasurable distraction all week.

“Have I mentioned how ravishing you look, princess?” Adrien interrupted her admittedly prattling tale of how she messed up and fixed the GANTT chart he helped her and Hina set up.

“You have,” Marinette said with a raised eyebrow. “Though I’m not against a bit of repetition now and then.”

“I’m having trouble concentrating on the color-changing crystals. I’m supposed to be reading the accompanying texts, aren’t I?”

“That’s because you’re an overachiever, chevalier. I’m sure you’ll do justice to the artist just by admiring the beauty of her work.”

“What if I’m too busy admiring the beauty of the woman in my arm?”

“Are you really practicing your lines on me? For your brief interviews tonight? Are you that rusty, Mr. Agreste?”

“I’m more of an immersive experience type of guy.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“I noticed you noticing. The fabric of your romper…. is reminiscent of silken sheets in a balmy summer night.”

"I wouldn't know," Marinette quipped. "Mine is cotton and yours are viscose, my sensitive sunshine princess."

Adrien's long list of allergies and skin sensitivities, coupled with his love of romantic adventure epics in varying media, had earned him the moniker years ago. He had seen it fit to proclaim her his resilient cornflower prince in retaliation.

"Your choice of eau de toilette…” he continued. “Chocolate and orange and hints of clove... is sending some subliminal message I'm having trouble decoding."

"Let's see if I remember, handsome boy," she said, pleased that he seemed to realize now which memory had inspired her attire. “It was early summer last year. We had another late night preparing for a product release and the only edible thing we could find in your monstrosity of a house is a box of chocolates and it wasn't even yours or your dad's."

“Hmm… I seem to be remembering other things, things we shouldn’t be discussing in polite company.”

“If I remember correctly those other things happened the next day.”

“No, no. It was technically the same day since we definitely got in after midnight.”

“All right, Mr. Adrien 'specificity’ Agreste. You’ve ruined that word forever, by the way.”

“It’s not every day a delicate sunshine princess loses his cherry to the go-getter Dark Horse of Agreste House’s ready wear department.”

“Please, delicate sunshine princess. You always lead from the front lines.”

“My front lines would lead much less if you didn’t try to provoke me so, o resilient cornflower prince.”

“If this is your way of telling me you officially got the job as the design director of menswear, Adrien, I am going to–”

“Punish me how?”

Marinette swatted him with her free hand, despite herself, knowing she had been slowly flushing crimson under the influence of his caramel-timbered voice and the insinuating words with which he expressed his appreciation of her attire tonight. He really was such a transparent spazz…

“And no, they haven’t called yet. Father is particular about business things like this. He wouldn’t say anything over breakfast or dinner.”

“I think I just might kill to be a fly on the wall for one of your rekindling dates.”

“You don’t have to. You’re coming next time. Since we’re now _official_ official.”

“… dinner with my ex-boss after I wrongly accused him of leaking information about my private life. All right then.”

“No, it’s dinner with your boyfriend’s father. I told you, father doesn’t mix business matters with family ones. And honestly? If he wasn’t so distracted by that royal wedding thing, he might have done the same. With a little more finesse, granted.”

Marinette inwardly winced at yet another thing to worry about in the near future: her rocky relationship with the man more than likely set to become her father-in-law. Only three weeks ago, she had accused Gabriel Agreste of leaking information about her relationship with Adrien to the tabloids. Though it turned out some members of the PR department had decided to sensationalize Adrien’s return to modeling by the gossip all on their own, Marinette had still resigned from her full-time position as a contributing designer to the readywear and mass production clothing lines of the Agreste House. It also left Gabriel thinking her and Adrien’s relationship as being more serious than it really was—which was a moot point since they _weren’t_ not serious, even though they haven’t formally been engaged yet, and not that she was in any particular hurry to be asked, but not that she’d say no, of course—and it left her, Marinette Dupain-Cheng actually and seriously preparing to launch a clothing line and boutique with her old schoolmate Hina Izumi. They had an actual project plan, reviewed and approved by her business schooled boyfriend, actual meetings with banks for loans and small business accounts, actual canvassing of textile companies for raw materials… and so many overwhelming details and requirements and, boy, this is it, Marinette.

“Anyway, about the marred lines of your front–“

"You just had to _explicitly_ mention the _elephant_ in the room, didn’t you, go-getter?”

“Did you just refer to your… frontal disturbance as an elephant, you cocky piece of–”

“Whoa, hold your horses, Mari! Or rather, hold off trying to hold this horse right now.”

Marinette sputtered in outrage.

“Speaking of front lines, we’ve reached it.”

Without her noticing, they’ve reached the line of reporters and photographers waiting to interview the gala guests.

“You’ll be just fine, princess.”

That remained to be seen, though she was determined to at least not break her leg, her neck, or another person. Her grip on Adrien’s arm tightened; he seemed to attribute this to her nervousness at being presented like a main dish in a cutthroat cooking contest. Prying her hold loose, he took her right hand in his and let his left hand hover over her left hip, near enough for him to catch her if she toppled.

She barely registered the tentative greetings Adrien graciously returned, both from the press and the other guests. The usual questions ensued, touching on Adrien’s modeling hiatus, being in school full-time, being involved in the financial facet of his father’s business instead of the promotional end. When one of the reporters finally tackled the elephant in the room, namely her, Marinette’s mind had conveniently settled into a blank, one emptier than the sharp white walls of the gallery.

“Forgive my lapse in manners,” Adrien was saying. “I’d like to introduce my date, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Adrien Agreste was known to be quite a serious young man–would it be right to assume things were serious between him and Miss Dupain-Cheng?

“What a loaded question! We take each other seriously, of course, and we take it day by day. I mean, we are only twenty-three.”

This is a fairly new relationship, then?

“Let’s just say it’s an evolving one. How long have we been friends, Mari, ten years? Eleven?”

“Somewhere in between,” she vaguely heard herself croak through her frozen smile.

“But I’ve noticed you ladies and gents have yet to ask about what we’re wearing. Please do oblige me or I’ll feel like I’m not doing my job here.”

The press tittered, predictably charmed by one Adrien Agreste and obliged him, asking about his jacket, chinos, and driving shoes ensemble. The flight jacket was pretty in pink, plain from the front but emblazoned with a white Siberian tiger brocade on the back, the significance of the cornflower blue eyes of the big cat not lost on Marinette. The chinos were in white, boot-cut, quite snug fitting and demonstrative that the former teen model had kept his slim figure throughout his hiatus. The driving shoes were in suede, also in the shade of the blue of the tiger’s eyes, one she distractingly remembered he swore was the same shade of her eyes when she was excited by the prospect of her parents’ home-cooking, a night out with Alya, a day off with him…

It seems you’ve missed dressing down, haven’t you, Mr. Agreste? Tired of the suits and ties demanded by the corporate job?

Adrien demurred that he didn’t in fact have a full-time job yet, despite hearsay.

And what do you think of this laid-back style, reminiscent of his teen model days, Miss Dupain-Cheng?

“I have to say, I haven’t seen him show off his thighs since the _lycee_ days of skinny jeans,” Marinette heard herself quip, a distant part of her horrified at the tacit admission that she has in fact inspected the thighs of her current–but definitely not then–boyfriend.

_Calm down, Marinette_ , she admonished herself. _This isn’t the first time you’ve been in front of the camera. You’ve done this countless times before._

_Not as Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I haven’t_ , countered the nervous wreck part of her.

_Oh, then pretend you are Ladybug! Something. Just get through this!_

“This probably isn’t the time for this,” Adrien said. “But it looks like we mutually admire each other’s thighs. I admit it. The romper and the blazer combo is en pointe. You look so sharp you could cut, Mari.”

“Why, thank you, handsome boy. I’ll be sure to be careful and not cut you by accident.”

The journalists agreed with Adrien’s observations with seeming sincerity, praising the balance in Marinette’s look, the severity of her top knot, the tiny but eye-catching accessories in form of diamond stud earrings and a lone pendant tracing the plunge of her décolletage, and the softness of the single twirled ribbon spinning from her up-do.

“Marinette has been designing and making clothes since _college_. Maybe even before then. We’ve also briefly worked together, see. We both interned at Agreste while in school.”

Having an “in” is as important as having talent, wouldn’t you say?

“On the contrary, I mentioned the fact to demonstrate how much my date in fact transcends my limited talent in the creative aspect of the business. She didn’t need anyone’s help getting that internship.”

Then there’s nothing left to say but that we look forward to seeing more from you, Miss Dupain-Cheng.

“You won’t have to wait too long. Just remember: you heard about her from me first.”

After she and Adrien sauntered away from the polite chatter, her boyfriend stopped her with a slight nudge on her elbow.

“Was that okay?” he asked, carefully peering at her face, as if to measure her answer against her damnably transparent expressions beneath his scrutiny. “I mean…”

“Which part?” she hedged.

“I don’t know. The premature promotion of your as yet unnamed boutique. The vaguing. My, uh, thighs. Pick one. Pick all.”

“More than okay.”

“Good. I wanted them to understand that you’re special to me. And that being malicious to you, for what it’s worth, would be tantamount to being malicious to me.”

“I think they got that loud and clear, chevalier. That and we mutually admire each other’s thighs.” Marinette made a face. “I overdid tonight, didn’t I?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well. Isn’t my get up… too contrived?”

“Is this a trick question? Are you docking points for my being obviously biased?”

“All right. So you love my attire. Are you speaking as my boyfriend or as one of my investors?”

“Both. The fabric and the details made your romper an exciting but fitting alternative to a cocktail dress. The charcoal tone against your skin is eye-catching but stark, a zen garden in an exhibit that thematically explores our world of sensory overload. You killed it tonight, Mari. And that’s not just my hoping for a little death myself talking.”

She hit him for the little death innuendo, anyway, and for the outrageous puns he unleashed while distracting her from the impending press conference. And for this, for his ingenious attempt to intellectualize his partialness to everything her.

“Jokes aside, love. I want you to understand that you don’t need to force yourself for these things. However much you’re willing to step into this side of my world, I’ll manage. They’ll manage. Please don’t feel pressured to live up to some standard. You’re part of my life but you don’t have to be part of this aspect of it.”

“You’re wrong, you know.”

“Mari?”

“Having an 'in’ is important, as they pointed out. Take care of me, Mr. Adrien Agreste. Fashion world- _senpai_?”

“…you did not just call me your senior in fashion, woman whose pigeon-inspired derby hat won Gabriel Agreste’s approval at the tender age of 14.”

"Please, you dork. You like it when I try to sound as dorky as you. Isn't that the point of all those shounen anime marathons you make me sit through?"”

“How about… ' _shishou_ ’ instead?”

“Don’t push your luck, handsome boy. If anyone’s calling anyone ‘master’ tonight, I’m definitely not dressed for it.” She pointed meaningfully at the deadly heels of her shoes.

"Ha-ha, very punny. By the way, it’s not just your thighs, you know. God, Mari, I almost had a heart attack with the amount of skin I saw walking towards me. As in 'screw this gala and grant me my little death wish’ level admiration.”

“Adrien, it’s things like this that make you sound like a dirty old man. The worst part is none of those reporters would believe it.”

“Hahahaha… Do you realize something, Mari? We could totally pull off Urahara and Yoruichi in the next Paris comic con.”

“We haven’t gotten that far enough in Bleach, silly. I don’t officially know them yet.”

Marinette decided she had enough time that night, enough time to marathon yet another shounen anime with her boyfriend, enough time to just enjoy his company and remember why in first place it was so important that their steps march closely to each other’s, if not overlap in places. The disposable cheetah flats stayed folded in her purse even during their trip home, though her sensibilities had nothing to do with the decision to keep the 10cm bear trap/sandals on.

Not that she ever really needed the excuse to stay close to one Adrien Agreste.

 

* * *

 

Marinette wasn’t sure how long she sat in silence, unmoving, as she tried to make sense of the thoughts wreaking havoc in her head. His room was cavernous for sure, and in a darkness rent only by motion-triggered lighting seeping in from the estate grounds every few minutes, she felt even more alone now than she had the moment she realized she had driven Adrien away.

She could probably come up with any number of reasons why he never had the chance to tell her about his secret. No doubt he would be proven right once they talk about their respective reasons, that his would echo hers, mirror hers. How did one go about mourning a taste of godhood? How could one feel comfortable in one’s lone and fallible skin?

At the threat of losing him, really, what did it matter?

Perhaps, her arrogance was the root of the issue. She was far too ensconced with the notion that he was an indelible part of her, and her of him, that unleashing such rage was as elemental, as excusable, as raging against herself. Years ago, he promised to accommodate her into his world in however way she was comfortable of joining. He had delivered on his promise so well that the idea that he had held something back from her, something she had thought was singular, someone she had given up for lost, hurt her deeply.

“Still not an excuse,” she whispered.

Adrien’s room was untouched, barely changed from how it was in _lycee_ with its wall-to-wall shelves, the multiple monitors, a collection of every game console that has been released the past thirty years. They had gleefully planned on spending future date nights here, marathoning entire seasons of shows they’ve missed in their busy schedules. He didn’t take much from here to bring to their townhome, aside from clothes and a few choice pictures of his mother, his family.

_Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife._

They had both religiously attended Pre-Cana, yet another requirement to fulfill before their big day. Perhaps, it wasn’t unreasonable for Adrien to not return to his father’s house just because he needed to leave theirs. Perhaps, it was again her arrogance deluding her into relief instead of the disquiet she should be feeling at not finding her fiancé in his boyhood home.

When Marinette arrived at the Agreste’s home, Nathalie had been awake and waiting for her at the mansion door, no doubt instructed by her boss to show Marinette to Adrien’s room. For a tiny moment, she had been happy to see that Adrien had indeed not returned here, a telling victory against her father-in-law, perhaps, that Adrien’s home was now nowhere else but with her. But then the full magnitude of what she had done hit her at the same moment: she had cast him away. She had abandoned him, called him a stranger. She hurt him.

Once upon a time, Marinette dreamed of rescuing Adrien from this room, from all the excess space that drowned him, choked the joy of life from him. That she would whisk him away from this glamorized prison and that they would run far, far away where his father could no longer hurt him. But now that she was the source of pain, she the villain, where would Adrien run?

Marinette was at a complete loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a while. Sorry.
> 
> Thanks to Miko-chan, as always, for her kindness and hand-holding and sunkengardenbroth. I borrowed the cosplaying, shounen marathoning Adrinette from her.
> 
>  About the le petit mort / the little death joke. As I understand, it’s like an ML fic staple now? I first encountered it in Mercy_angel_09’s That Thing You Do and it was only a matter of time before it made its way into one of my wips. Ehehehe.
> 
> Pre-cana is a course or consultation for couples preparing to be married in a Catholic church (lifted straight from Wikipedia). Honestly haven’t given much thought to either of the kids’ religious background. Just that it’s not unlikely for one or both of them to have been baptized as one, regardless of how lightly they practiced Catholicism, if at all. ~~I just ended up using the Genesis 2:24 quote and ended up liking how it turned out and was too lazy to reimagine things.~~
> 
> 4/27 - minor edits made for issues on clarity pointed out by MiraculousMage.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance. The fic probably covered/will cover themes previously and amazingly explored by other writers, but this is just way too fun... (this, after i said i'd never write one). 1st posted on tumblr acct.  
> Also, Izumi Hina is a character from tokusatsu series Kamer Rider: OOO. I didn't tag this as a crossover as it won't be. (Maybe once a certain friend falls into ML...)


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